The LANER: optical networks as complex lasers

Abstract

We discuss the main features of a new optical system capable of laser action: the active complex optical network, or lasing network (LANER). The system is experimentally realized with optical fibers linked each other with suitable optical couplers and with one or more coherent optical amplifying sections. The LANER displays a standard laser behavior: when the gain provided by the active sections is high enough to overcome the losses a coherent emission is produced, with a complicated intensity spectrum reflecting the structure of the network. A simple linear theoretical description is introduced and discussed, showing how the LANER can be considered as a generalization of the laser for a complicated cavity represented by the network itself. The system can be mapped to directed graphs and permits to disclosure the analogies with the problem of quantum chaos on graphs. In the case the links are all integer multiples of the same length, it is shown that the LANER framework corresponds to a lattice problem, with the equivalence of the Brillouin zone with the cavity Free Spectral Range. Experimental realizations of different configurations are presented and examples of spectra are reported, in a phenomenological agreement with the numerical findings of the theory.

arXiv commentSubmitted to Phys.Rev.E

References in corpus (13)

• Periodic Orbit Theory and Spectral Statistics for Quantum Graphs
• Quantum Optics of Chiral Spin Networks
• Random walks on graphs: ideas, techniques and results
• Experimental simulation of quantum graphs by microwave networks
• Quantum Graphs: A simple model for Chaotic Scattering
• Experimental and theoretical investigation of statistical regimes in random laser emission
• Bose-Einstein Condensation on inhomogeneous complex networks
• Stationary scattering from a nonlinear network
• Quantum Fields on Star Graphs
• Transport and dynamics on open quantum graphs
• Complex active optical networks as a new laser concept
• Classical dynamics on graphs
• Small-world networks of optical fiber lattices

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Heterogeneous Random Laser with Switching Activity Visualized by Replica Symmetry Breaking Maps
• Narrow peaks of full transmission in simple quantum graphs
• Simple quantum graphs proposal for quantum devices
• Phase-locking dynamics of heterogeneous oscillator arrays
• Modeling active optical networks
• Perturbing scattering resonances in non-Hermitian systems: a generalized Wigner-Smith operator formulation
• Chaotic fluctuations in graphs with amplification
• Spaceless description of active optical media
• Graph model for multiple scattering in lithium niobate on insulator integrated photonic networks
• Lasing in Self-Assembled Biophotonic Network