Frequency and phase locking in a cavity soliton laser

Abstract

The last few years have seen rapid progress in the creation of cavity solitons in broad-area semiconductor lasers. Such states represent small coherent microlasers which can be controlled by the operator thus making them interesting for optical information processing [1]. Here we investigate Laser Cavity Solitons (LCS) in a Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) with Frequency Selective Feedback (FSF). In our cavity soliton laser, the phase is not fixed and each LCS can have a different frequency due to disorder. Each LCS therefore has the freedom to choose its own frequency and phase. As such, it seems an interesting question to ask whether two or more of these self-localized states show frequency and phase locking behavior.