The stabilization of unstable states hidden in the dynamics of a system, in particular the control of chaos, received much attention in the last years. In this work, a well-known control method called delayed feedback control is applied for the first time entirely in the all-optical domain. A multisection semiconductor laser receives optical feedback from an external Fabry-Perot interferometer. The control signal is a phase-tunable superposition of the laser signal, and provokes the laser to operate in an otherwise unstable periodic state with a period equal to the time delay. The control is noninvasive, because the reflected signal tends to zero when the target state is reached.

Publication in the field of natural sciences

Autorentext

Dr. Sylvia Schikora completed her doctoral thesis on ultrafast noninvasive control of semiconductor lasers at the Department of Physics, Humboldt University of Berlin. She currently works at Humboldt University as a postdoctoral researcher with a focus on optical metrology.

Inhalt
All-Optical Control Setup.- Stable States with Resonant Fabry-Perot Feedback.- Control of an Unstable Stationary State.- Control of Unstable Self-Pulsations.- Controlling Chaos.- Control of a Torsionfree Orbit.