An innovative scheme is proposed for the dynamic control of phase in two-dimensional laser beam array. It is based on a simple neural network that predicts the complex field array from the intensity of the induced scattered pattern through a phase intensity transformer made of a diffuser. Iterated phase corrections are applied on the laser field array by phase modulators via a feedback loop to set the array to prescribed phase values. A crucial feature is the use of a kind of reinforcement learning approach for the neural network training which takes account of the iterated corrections. Experiments on a proof of concept system demonstrated the high performance and scalability of the scheme with an array of up to 100 laser beams and a phase setting at 1/30 of the wavelength.
A novel method for converting an array of out-of-phase lasers into one of in-phase lasers that can be tightly focused is presented. The method exploits second harmonic generation and can be adapted for different laser arrays geometries. Experimental and calculated results, presented for negatively coupled lasers formed in a square, honeycomb, and triangular geometries are in good agreement.
A new scheme for building two dimensional laser arrays that operate in the single supermode regime is proposed. This is done by introducing an optical coupling between the laser array and a lossy pseudo-isospectral chain of photonic resonators. The spectrum of this discrete reservoir is tailored to suppress all the supermodes of the main array except the fundamental one. This spectral engineering is facilitated by employing the Householder transformation in conjunction with discrete supersymmetry. The proposed scheme is general and can in principle be used in different platforms such as VCSEL …
Coherent beam combination (CBC) of fiber lasers holds promise for achieving high brightness laser systems, which have given rise to widespread applications such as particle accelerator, space debris removal, and industrial fabrication. The emitting laser array of CBC systems offers intriguing features in terms of agile beam steering, flexible beam shaping, and high scalability for output power and array elements. However, the theoretical model of the laser array in CBC systems is less well explored beyond the routine angular-spectrum method, where methods for optimizing the laser array configu…
We studied complex lasing pattern formations in a thin-slice solid-state laser with wide-aperture laser-diode end-pumping. Radial and rectangular vortex arrays were found to be formed in a controlled fashion with symmetric and asymmetric pump beam profiles, respectively. Most of these vortices exhibited single-frequency oscillations arising from a spontaneous process of transverse mode locking of nearly degenerate modes assisted by the laser nonlinearity. Single-frequency rectangular array beams consisting of a large number of vortices, e.g., closely packed 36 or 46 vortex pixels, were generat…
We measure the lasing dynamics of single and coupled photonic crystal nanocavity array lasers fabricated in the indium gallium arsenide phosphide material system. Under short optical excitation, single cavity lasers produce pulses as fast as 11 ps (FWHM), while coupled cavity lasers show significantly longer lasing duration which is not explained by a simple rate equations model. A Finite Difference Time Domain simulation including carrier gain and diffusion suggests that asynchronous lasing across the nanocavity array extends the laser's pulse duration.
Recently it is shown that dissipatively coupled laser arrays simulate the classical XY model. We show that phase-locking of laser arrays can give rise to the spontaneous formation of vortex and antivortex phase patterns that are analogous to topological defects of the XY model. These patterns are stable although their formation is less likely in comparison to the ground state lasing mode. In addition, we show that small ratios of photon-to-gain lifetime destabilizes vortex and antivortex phase patterns. These findings are important for studying topological effects in optics as well as for desi…
Configurations for efficient free space coherent addition of four separate fiber lasers arranged in two dimensional array are presented. They include compact and robust interferometric combiners that can be inserted either inside or outside the cavity of the combined lasers system. The results reveal that over 85% combining efficiency can be obtained.
We demonstrate that deep reinforcement learning (deep RL) provides a highly effective strategy for the control and self-tuning of optical systems. Deep RL integrates the two leading machine learning architectures of deep neural networks and reinforcement learning to produce robust and stable learning for control. Deep RL is ideally suited for optical systems as the tuning and control relies on interactions with its environment with a goal-oriented objective to achieve optimal immediate or delayed rewards. This allows the optical system to recognize bi-stable structures and navigate, via trajec…
Since the advent of optical orbital angular momentum (OAM), advances in the generation and manipulation of OAM beams have continuously impacted on intriguing applications including optical communication, optical tweezers, and remote sensing. To realize the generation of high-power and fast switchable OAM beams, coherent combining of fiber lasers offers a promising way. Here in this contribution, we comprehensively investigate the coherent fiber laser array system for structuring OAM beams in terms of the design considerations and performance analysis. The performance metric and evaluation meth…
A fraction of a laser beam array, whose unknown phase relationships must be set to prescribed values, is launched into a scattering media with random transmission. The resulting output speckle pattern is sampled by an array of photodiodes measuring the local light intensity. The data feed an innovative optimization process which controls a phase modulator array. Few iterations of the opto-numeric loop lead to efficient and fast phase locking on any desired wavefront.
An arrangement based on a degenerate cavity laser for forming an array of non-linearly coupled lasers with an intra-cavity saturable absorber is presented. More than $30$ lasers were spatially phase locked and temporally Q-switched. The arrangement with nonlinear coupling was found to be $25$ times more sensitive to loss differences and converged $5$ times faster to the lowest loss phase locked state than with linear coupling, thus providing a unique solution to problems that have several near-degenerate solutions.
We report on fabricating high-fill-factor plano-convex spherical and square micro-lens arrays on fused silica glass surface using CO2 laser assisted reshaping technique. Initially, periodic micro-pillars have been encoded on the glass surface by means of a femtosecond laser beam. Afterwards, the micro-pillars are polished several times by irradiating a CO2 laser beam on top of the micro-pillars. Consequently, spherical micro-lens array with micro-lens size of 50 um x 50 um and square micro-lens array with micro-lens size of 100 um x 100 um are formed on fused silica glass surface. We also stud…
We introduce the concept of supersymmetric laser arrays that consists of a main optical lattice and its superpartner structure, and we investigate the onset of their lasing oscillations. Due to the coupling of the two constituent lattices, their degenerate optical modes form doublets, while the extra mode associated with unbroken supersymmetry forms a singlet state. Singlet lasing can be achieved for a wide range of design parameters either by introducing stronger loss in the partner lattice or by pumping only the main array. Our findings suggest the possibility of building single-mode, high-p…
Phase-locking an array of quantum cascade lasers is an effective way to achieve higher output power and beam shaping. In this article, based on Talbot effect, we show a new-type phase-locked array of mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers with an integrated spatial- filtering Talbot cavity. All the arrays show stable in-phase operation from the threshold current to full power current. The beam divergence of the array device is smaller than that of a single-ridge laser. We use the multi-slit Fraunhofer diffraction mode to interpret the far-field radiation profile and give a solution to get better …
We describe passive phase-locking architectures based on external-cavity setups to improve the brightness of diode laser bars. Volume Bragg gratings are used to stabilize the lase line. Numerical modelling and experimental results will be presented.
Coherent combination of emission power from an array of coupled semiconductor lasers operating on the same chip is of fundamental and technological importance. In general, the nonlinear competition among the array supermodes can entail incoherence and spectral broadening, leading to spatiotemporally unstable and multimode emission pattern and thus poor beam quality. Here, by harnessing notions from supersymmetric (SUSY) quantum mechanics, we report that the strategic coupling between a class III-V semiconductor microring laser array with its dissipative superpartner can be used to limit the nu…
Inspired by the idea of non-Hermitian spectral engineering and non-Hermitian skin effect, a novel design for stable emission of coupled laser arrays with tunable phase locking and strong supermode competition suppression is suggested. We consider a linear array of coupled resonators with asymmetric mode coupling displaying the non-Hermitian skin effect and show that, under suitable tailoring of complex frequencies of the two edge resonators, the laser array can stably emit in a single extended supermode with tunable phase locking and with strong suppression of all other skin supermodes. The pr…
We propose a simple approach to implement a tunable, high power and narrow linewidth laser source based on a series of highly coherent tones from an electro-optic frequency comb and a set of 3 DFB slave lasers. We experimentally demonstrate approximately 1.25 THz (10 nm) of tuning within the C-Band centered at 192.9 THz (1555 nm). The output power is approximately 100 mW (20 dBm), with a side band suppression ratio greater than 55 dB, and a linewidth below 400 Hz across the full range of tunability. This approach is scalable and may be extended to cover a significantly broader optical spectral…
We demonstrate theoretically that robust mode-locking can be achieved on a semiconductor chip with a waveguide array architecture. The waveguide arrays are used as an ideal saturable absorption mechanism for initial noise start-up as well as pulse shaping and stabilization. The cavity gain is provided by an injection current and forward biasing of the semiconductor material. The technology can be integrated directly with semiconductor architectures and technologies, thus allowing for the potential of an on-chip, broadband device.
Stable and phase-locked emission in an extended topological supermode of coupled laser arrays, based on concepts of non-Hermitian and topological photonics, is theoretically suggested. We consider a non-Hermitian Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chain of coupled microring resonators and show that application of a synthetic imaginary gauge field via auxiliary passive microrings leads to all supermodes of the chain, except one, to become edge states. The only extended supermode, that retains some topological protection, can stably oscillate suppressing all other non-topological edge supermodes. Numerical si…
The theoretical framework of supersymmetry (SUSY) aims to relate bosons and fermions -- two profoundly different species of particles -- and their interactions. While this space-time symmetry is seen to provide an elegant solution to many unanswered questions in high-energy physics, its experimental verification has so far remained elusive. Here, we demonstrate that, notions from supersymmetry can be strategically utilized in optics in order to address one of the longstanding challenges in laser science. In this regard, a supersymmetric laser array is realized, capable of emitting exclusively …
Yes, it is possible to phase lock 25 fiber lasers but only for a short time. Our experiments on passively phase locking two-dimensional arrays of coupled fiber lasers reveal that the average phase locking level of 25 lasers is low ($20%-30%$) but can exceed 90% on rare instantaneous events. The average phase locking level was found to decrease for larger number of lasers in the array and increase with the connectivity of the array.
A localized non-Hermitian potential can operate as a coherent perfect absorber or as a laser for nonlinear waves. The effect is illustrated for an array of optical waveguides, with the central waveguide being either active or absorbing. The arrays situated to the left and to the right from the center can have different characteristics. The result is generalized to setups with the central waveguide carrying additional nonlinear dissipation or gain and to the two-dimensional arrays with embedded one-dimensional absorbing or lasing sub-arrays.
A unique approach for steady in-phase locking of lasers in an array, regardless of the array geometry, position, orientation, period or size, is presented. The approach relies on the insertion of an intra-cavity Gaussian aperture in the far-field plane of the laser array. Steady in-phase locking of $90$ lasers, whose far-field patterns are comprised of sharp spots with extremely high power density, was obtained for various array geometries, even in the presence of near-degenerate solutions, geometric frustration or superimposed independent longitudinal modes. The internal phase structures of t…
Networks of optically coupled semiconductor lasers are of high interest for fundamental investigations and for enabling numerous technological applications in material processing, lighting and information processing. Still, experimental realizations of large networks of such elements employing a scalable concepts have so far been been lacking. Here, we present a network 22 of the vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers in a $5 \times 5$ square lattice array via. Crucially, the array allows individual control over each laser's pump current, which we leverage spectrally align the array. Leveragi…
We present a novel proposal to generate an optical vortex beam by using the coherent-superposition of multi-beams in a radial symmetrical configuration. In terms of the generalized Huygens-Fresnel diffraction integral, we have derived the general propagation expression for the coherent radial laser arrays. Based on the derived formulae, we have analyzed the effects of the beamlet number, the separation distance of the beamlets and the topological charge on the intensity and phase distributions of the resulted beams. Our simulation results show that optical vortices could be efficiently formed …
It is shown that the interference between spontaneous emission into the non-lasing supermode and the laser field of a semiconductor laser array causes spatial holeburning which couples the dynamics of the spontaneous emission with the laser field. In particular, phase locking between the spontaneous emission and the lasing mode leads to the formation of a spectral triplet composed of in-phase relaxation oscillation sidebands and an out-of-phase line at the lasing frequency.
In this paper, we consider the effect of the atmospheric turbulence on the propagation of optical vertex formed from the radial coherent laser beam array, with the initially well-defined phase distribution. The propagation formula of the radial coherent laser array passing through the turbulent atmosphere is analytically derived by using the extended Huygens-Fresnel diffraction integral. Based on the derived formula, the effect of the atmospheric turbulence on the propagation properties of such laser arrays has been studied in great detail. Our main results show that the atmospheric turbulence…
We propose a self-consistent many-body theory for coupling the ultrafast dipole-transition and carrier-plasma dynamics in a linear array of quantum wires with the scattering and absorption of ultrashort laser pulses. The quantum-wire non-thermal carrier occupations are further driven by an applied DC electric field along the wires in the presence of resistive forces from intrinsic phonon and Coulomb scattering of photo-excited carriers. The same strong DC field greatly modifies the non-equilibrium properties of the induced electron-hole plasma coupled to the propagating light pulse, while the …
Topological insulator lasers (TILs) are a recently introduced family of lasing arrays in which phase locking is achieved through synthetic gauge fields. These single frequency light source arrays operate in the spatially extended edge modes of topologically non-trivial optical lattices. Because of the inherent robustness of topological modes against perturbations and defects, such topological insulator lasers tend to demonstrate higher slope efficiencies as compared to their topologically trivial counterparts. So far, magnetic and non-magnetic optically pumped topological laser arrays as well …
Electrically-pumped lasers directly grown on silicon are key devices interfacing silicon microelectronics and photonics. We report here, for the first time, an electrically-pumped, room-temperature, continuous-wave (CW) and single-mode distributed feedback (DFB) laser array fabricated in InAs/GaAs quantum-dot (QD) gain material epitaxially grown on silicon. CW threshold currents as low as 12 mA and single-mode side mode suppression ratios (SMSRs) as high as 50 dB have been achieved from individual devices in the array. The laser array, compatible with state-of-the-art coarse wavelength divisio…
Arrays of coupled semiconductor lasers are systems possessing complex dynamical behavior that are of major interest in photonics and laser science. Dynamical instabilities, arising from supermode competition and slow carrier dynamics, are known to prevent stable phase locking in a wide range of parameter space, requiring special methods to realize stable laser operation. Inspired by recent concepts of parity-time ($\mathcal{PT}$) and non-Hermitian photonics, in this work we consider non-Hermitian coupling engineering in laser arrays in a ring geometry and show, both analytically and numericall…
Semiconductor laser arrays have been investigated experimentally and theoretically from the viewpoint of temporal and spatial coherence for the past forty years. In this work, we are focusing on a rather novel complex collective behavior, namely chimera states, where synchronized clusters of emitters coexist with unsynchronized ones. For the first time, we find such states exist in large diode arrays based on quantum well gain media with nearest-neighbor interactions. The crucial parameters are the evanescent coupling strength and the relative optical frequency detuning between the emitters of…
Arrays of coupled semiconductor lasers are systems possessing radically complex dynamics that makes them useful for numerous applications in beam forming and beam shaping. In this work, we investigate the spatial controllability of oscillation amplitudes in an array of coupled photonic dimers, each consisting of two semiconductor lasers driven by differential pumping rates. We consider parameter values for which each dimer's stable phase-locked state has become unstable through a Hopf bifurcation and we show that, by assigning appropriate pumping rate values to each dimer, large-amplitude osci…
We propose and explore a physical mechanism for the stabilization of the complex spatiotemporal dynamics in arrays (bars) of broad area laser diodes taking advantage of the symmetry breaking in non-Hermitian potentials. We show that such stabilization can be achieved by specific pump and index profiles leading to a PT-symmetric coupling between nearest neighboring lasers within the semiconductor bar. A numerical analysis is performed using a complete (2+1)-dimensional space-temporal model, including transverse and longitudinal spatial degrees of freedom and temporal evolution of the electric f…
Topological lasers have been intensively investigated as a strong candidate for robust single-mode lasers. A typical topological laser employs a single-mode topological edge state, which appears deterministically in a designed topological bandgap and exhibits robustness to disorder. These properties seem to be highly attractive in pursuit of high power lasers capable of single mode operation. In this paper, we theoretically analyze a large-scale single-mode laser based on a topological edge state. We consider a sizable array laser consisting of a few hundreds of site resonators, which support …
Frequency stabilization of laser light is crucial in both scientific and industrial applications. Technological developments now allow analog laser stabilization systems to be replaced with digital electronics such as field-programmable gate arrays, which have recently been utilized to develop such locking systems. We have developed a frequency stabilization system based on a field-programmable gate array, with emphasis on hardware simplicity, which offers a user-friendly alternative to commercial and previous home-built solutions. Frequency modulation, lock-in detection and a proportional-int…
In comparison with conventional lasers, topological lasers are more robust and can be immune to disorder or de-fects if lasing occurs in topologically protected states. Previously reported topological lasers were almost exclu-sively based on the first-order photonic topological insulators. Here, we show that lasing can be achieved in the zero-dimensional corner state in a second-order photonic topological insulator, which is based on Kagome wave-guide array with a rhombic configuration. If gain is present in the corner of the structure, where topological corner state resides, stable lasing in …
Fully exploiting the silicon photonics platform requires a fundamentally new approach to realize high-performance laser sources that can be integrated directly using wafer-scale fabrication methods. Direct band gap III-V semiconductors allow efficient light generation but the large mismatch in lattice constant, thermal expansion and crystal polarity makes their epitaxial growth directly on silicon extremely complex. Here, using a selective area growth technique in confined regions, we surpass this fundamental limit and demonstrate an optically pumped InP-based distributed feedback (DFB) laser …
The stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) algorithm is usually employed as the control strategy for phase-locking in fiber laser phased array systems. However, the convergence speed of the SPGD algorithm will slow down as the number of array elements increases. To improve the control bandwidth, the convolutional neural network is introduced to quickly calculate the initial piston aberration in a single step. In addition, the irrationality of the commonly used Mean Square Error (MSE) evaluation function in existing convolutional neural networks is analyzed. A new evaluation function NPCD …
We demonstrate the high-efficiency generation of water-window soft x-ray emissions from polyethylene nanowire array targets irradiated by femtosecond laser pulses at the intensity of 4*10^19 W/cm^2. The experimental results indicate more than one order of magnitude enhancement of the water-window x-ray emissions from the nanowire array targets compared to the planar targets. The highest energy conversion efficiency from laser to water-window x-rays is measured as 0.5%/sr, which comes from the targets with the longest nanowires. Supported by particle-in-cell simulations and atomic kinetic codes…
Chip-scale integrated light sources are a crucial component in a broad range of photonics applications. III-V semiconductor nanowire emitters have gained attention as a fascinating approach due to their superior material properties, extremely compact size, and the capability to grow directly on lattice-mismatched silicon substrates. Although there have been remarkable advances in nanowire-based emitters, their practical applications are still in the early stages due to the difficulties in integrating nanowire emitters with photonic integrated circuits (PICs). Here, we demonstrate for the first…
Optically-coupled semiconductor laser arrays are described by coupled rate equations. The coupled mode equations and carrier densities are included in the analysis, which inherently incorporate the carrier-induced nonlinearities including spatial hole burning and amplitude-phase coupling. We solve the steady-state coupled rate equations and consider the cavity frequency detuning and the individual laser pump rates as the experimentally controlled variables. We show that the carrier-induced nonlinearities play a critical role in the mode control, and we identify gain contrast induced by cavity …
We show a phase-locked array of three quantum cascade lasers with an integrated Talbot cavity at one side of the laser array. The coupling scheme is called diffraction coupling. By controlling the length of Talbot to be a quarter of Talbot distance (Zt/4), in-phase mode operation can be selected. The in-phase operation shows great modal stability under different injection currents, from the threshold current to the full power current. The far-field radiation pattern of the in-phase operation contains three lobes, one central maximum lobe and two side lobes. The interval between adjacent lobes …
The Kuramoto model is a mathematical model for describing the collective synchronization phenomena of coupled oscillators. We theoretically demonstrate that an array of coupled photonic crystal lasers emulates the Kuramoto model with non-delayed nearest-neighbor coupling (the local Kuramoto model). Our novel strategy employs indirect coupling between lasers via additional cold cavities. By installing cold cavities between laser cavities, we avoid the strong coupling of lasers and realize ideal mutual injection-locking with effective non-delayed dissipative coupling. First, after discussing the…
We propose a novel supersymmetry-inspired scheme for achieving robust single mode lasing in arrays of coupled microcavities, based on factorizing a given array Hamiltonian into its "supercharge" partner array. Pumping a single sublattice of the partner array preferentially induces lasing of an unpaired zero mode. A chiral symmetry protects the zero mode similar to 1D topological arrays, but it need not be localized to domain walls or edges. We demonstrate single mode lasing over a wider parameter regime by designing the zero mode to have a uniform intensity profile.
The dynamics of a semiconductor-laser array whose individual elements are coupled in a global way through an external mirror is numerically analysed. A coherent in-phase solution is seen to be preferred by the system at intermediate values of the feedback coupling strength. At low values of this parameter, a strong amplification of the spontaneous emission noise is observed. A tendency towards chaos synchronization is also observed at large values of the feedback strength.
A rate equation model describing the laser dynamics of general one or two dimensional vertical cavity surface emitting laser (vcsel) arrays is introduced. It is shown that the theory includes both the previous theory for edge emitting semiconductor laser arrays and the theory of polarization dynamics in single quantum well vcsels in a single unified description. The model is based on the physical assumption of separate carrier density pools individually coupled to different light field modes. These modes interact through the coherent light field dynamics derived from Maxwell's equations. The s…
