Traveling wave modeling of nonlinear dynamics in multisection semiconductor lasers

Abstract

A hierarchy of 1 (time) + 1 (space) dimensional first-order partial differential equation (traveling wave) models is used for a description of dynamics in individual semiconductor lasers, various multisection semiconductor lasers, and coupled laser systems. Consequent modifications of the basic traveling wave model allow for taking into account different physical effects such as the gain dispersion, the thermal detuning, the spatial hole burning of carriers, the nonlinear gain saturation, or various carrier exchange processes in quantum dot lasers. For illustration, the model was applied for simulations of dynamics in complex ring laser with four branches of filtered feedback. Finally, several advanced techniques for model analysis such as calculation of instantaneous optical modes, finding of steady states, and numerical continuation and bifurcation analysis of the model equations were discussed and illustrated by example simulations.