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The different dynamical regions of an optically-pumped SESAM mode-locked, long-cavity VECSEL system with a fundamental pulse repetition frequency of ~200 MHz are investigated. The output power, captured as 250 μs long time series using a sampling rate of 200 GSa/s, for each operating condition of the system, is analyzed to determine the dynamical state. A wavelength range of 985-995 nm and optical pump powers of 10 W-16.3 W is studied. The system produces high quality fundamental passive mode-locking (FML) over an extensive part of the parameter space, but the different dynamical regions outside of FML are the primary focus of this study. We report five types of output: CW emission, FML, mode-locking of a few modes, double pulsing, and, semi-stable 4 th harmonic mode-locking. The high sampling rate of the oscilloscope, combined with the long duration of the time series analyzed, enables insight into how the structure and substructure of pulses vary systematically over thousands of round trips of the laser cavity. Higher average output power is obtained in regions characterized by semi-stable 4 th harmonic mode-locking than observed for FML, raising whether such average powers might be achieved for FML. The observed dynamic transitions from fundamental mode-locking provide insights into instability challenges in developing a stable, widely tunable, low repetition rate, turn-key system; and to inform future modelling of the system.

Permutation entropy (PE) has a growing significance as a relative measure of complexity in nonlinear systems. It has been applied successfully to measuring complexity in nonlinear laser systems. Here, PE and weighted permutation entropy (WPE) are discovered to show an unexpected inversion to higher values, when characterizing the complexity at the characteristic frequencies of nonlinear drivers in laser systems, for output power sequences which are pulsed. The cause of this inversion is explained and its presence can be used to identify when irregular dynamics transform into a fairly regular pulsed signal (with amplitude and timing jitter). When WPE is calculated from experimental output power time series from various nonlinear laser systems as a function of delay time, both the minimum value of WPE, and the width of the peak in the WPE plot are shown to be indicative of the level of amplitude variation and timing jitter present in the pulsed output. Links are made with analysis using simulated time series data with systematic variation in timing jitter and/or amplitude variations.

We report experimental evidence of spontaneous formation of localized structures in a 80 μm diameter Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL) biased above the lasing threshold and under optical injection. Such localized structures are bistable with the injected beam power and the VCSEL current. We experimentally investigate the formation of localized structures for different detunings between the injected beam and the VCSEL, and different injection beam waists.

Dissipative solitons are self-localized states which can exist anywhere in a system with translational symmetry, but in real systems this translational symmetry is usually broken due to parasitic inhomogeneities leading to spatial disorder, pinning the soliton positions. We discuss the effects of semiconductor growth induced spatial disorder on the operation of a cavity soliton laser based on a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL). We show that a refractive index variation induced by an external, suitably spatially modulated laser beam can be used to counteract the inherent disorder. In particular, it is demonstrated experimentally that the threshold of one cavity soliton can be lowered without influencing other cavity solitons making two solitons simultaneously bistable which were not without control. This proof of principle paves the way to achieve full control of large numbers of cavity solitons at the same time.

We demonstrate the first synchronously in-well pumped vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting laser (VECSEL). Depending on the cavity mismatch, laser pulses with a duration from 1 ps to 7 ps at a repetition rate of 76 MHz were generated directly from the laser at 860 nm. The application of extra-cavity pulse compression further shortened the pulse to a duration of 210 fs providing a peak power of 226 W.

The behavior of a room temperature synchronously mode-locked vertical-external cavity surface-emitting laser (VECSEL) operating at 980 nm is reported. The laser performance was found to be qualitatively the same for different pump pulse duration (3.6 ps and 70 fs). The pulse duration of the laser is limited by strong self-phase modulation to around 10-40 ps. By compressing the strongly chirped pulses generated directly from the laser, ultrashort pulses with duration of around 200 fs with maximum peak powers of 1.3 kW at 80 MHz were obtained. Multiple pulsing of the laser was observed and the effects of cavity length detuning on pulse width and spectral bandwidth have been investigated.

We investigate experimentally the polarization dynamics of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with isotropic optical feedback operating in the long-cavity regime. By means of an analysis of the correlation properties in the time domain and in the frequency domain a connection between a drift phenomenon and frequency components that deviate from the harmonics of the external cavity round-trip frequency is revealed. The latter frequency components are shown to result from an interaction of external cavity dynamics and relaxation oscillations. An analogy to the carrier-envelope effect in mode-locked lasers is drawn. Similar drift phenomena are observed also for other laser systems with delay.