We report a theoretical and experimental analysis of the polarization switching found in a single-transverse mode VCSEL when subject to parallel optical injection. We have found a novel situation in which injection locking of the parallel polarization and excitation of the free-running orthogonal polarization of the VCSEL are simultaneously obtained. Analytical expressions for the power of both linear polarizations in the previous steady state are determined. We show that considering two linear polarization modes in a model of a VCSEL subject to parallel optical injection leads to simpler expressions than those found for a VCSEL with only a single linear polarization. We show that the power emitted in both linear polarizations depend linearly on the injected power. The stability region of this solution is measured in the plane injected power versus frequency detuning.

Date Published: 28 April 2016
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 9892, Semiconductor Lasers and Laser Dynamics VII, 98920Q (28 April 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2227786

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9892:
Semiconductor Lasers and Laser Dynamics VII
Krassimir Panajotov; Marc Sciamanna; Angel Valle; Rainer Michalzik, Editor(s)