In-phase and anti-phase synchronization in a laser frequency comb

Abstract

Coupled clocks are a classic example of a synchronization system leading to periodic collective oscillations. This phenomenon already attracted the attention of Christian Huygens back in 1665,who described it as a kind of "sympathy" among oscillators. In this work we describe the formation of two types of laser frequency combs as a system of oscillators coupled through the beating of the lasing modes. We experimentally show two completely different types of synchronizations in a quantum dot laser { in-phase and splay states. Both states can be generated in the same device, just by varying the damping losses of the system. This effectively modifes the coupling among the oscillators. The temporal output of the laser is characterized using both linear and quadratic autocorrelation techniques. Our results show that both pulses and frequency-modulated states can be generated on demand. These findings allow to connect laser frequency combs produced by amplitude-modulated and frequency-modulated lasers, and link these to pattern formation in coupled systems such as Josephson-junction arrays.

References in corpus (6)

• Theory of frequency modulated combs in lasers with spatial hole burning, dispersion and Kerr
• Self-Injection Locking and Phase-Locked States in Microresonator-Based Optical Frequency Combs
• Coherent injection locking of quantum cascade laser frequency combs
• Phase Steps and Hot Resonator Detuning in Microresonator Frequency Combs
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Cited by in corpus (21)

• Dissipative Kerr solitons in semiconductor ring lasers
• Broadband quantum-dot frequency-modulated comb laser
• Self-switching Kerr oscillations of counter-propagating light in microresonators
• Mode-locked ultrashort pulses from an 8 $\mu$m wavelength semiconductor laser
• Simple Single-Section Diode Frequency Combs
• First-order synchronization transition in a large population of strongly coupled relaxation oscillators
• Analytical theory of frequency-modulated combs: generalized mean-field theory, complex cavities, and harmonic states
• Engineering the spectral bandwidth of quantum cascade laser frequency combs
• Frequency-modulated combs via on-chip field enhancement
• Synchronization of frequency combs by optical injection
• Fundamental scaling limits and bandwidth shaping of frequency-modulated combs
• Theory of coherent optical nonlinearities of intersubband transitions in semiconductor quantum wells
• Designs toward synchronization of optical limit cycles with coupled silicon photonic crystal microcavities
• Universal dynamics of spatiotemporal entrainment with phase symmetry
• Heterodyne coherent detection of the electric field temporal trace emitted by frequency-modulated comb lasers
• Noise-induced broadening of a quantum-dash laser optical frequency comb
• Frequency comb generation by Bloch gain induced giant Kerr nonlinearity
• High-resolution spectroscopy of arbitrary light sources using frequency combs
• Coherent microwave comb generation via the Josephson effect
• Frequency-modulated combs as phase solitons
• Frequency-modulated comb in a VECSEL