Boundary-induced localized structures in a nonlinear optical feedback experiment

Experimental and numerical evidence of symmetry-breaking bifurcations of a circular dissipative soliton with additional boundary conditions in the feedback of a liquid crystal light valve are reported. By tuning the strength of the nonlinearity or the size of the additional boundaries, the circular structure breaks up into polygonal symmetries and the system exhibits multistability. The experimental results are confirmed by numerical simulations with different configurations of the polarizers thus demonstrating the universality of the phenomenon.     

Localized optical structures in the scheme of a nonlinear layer with a feedback mirror

An analysis is made of the dynamics of the transverse structure of the field in the scheme of a layer of a medium with nonlinear amplitude-phase transmittance and a feedback mirror separated from it by a linear spacing. For the case of small field changes in a single passage, an approximate equation is derived, which is close in form to the equation used in the average-field approximation for nonlinear interferometers excited with external emission. For the nonlinearity of threshold type, an analytical form is presented for the field distribution corresponding to localized dissipative structures (dissitons).     

Quantum feedback control of atomic motion in an optical cavity

We study quantum feedback cooling of atomic motion in an optical cavity. We design a feedback algorithm that can cool the atom to the ground state of the optical potential with high efficiency despite the nonlinear nature of this problem. An important ingredient is a simplified state-estimation algorithm, necessary for a real-time implementation of the feedback loop. We also describe the critical role of parity dynamics in the cooling process and present a simple theory that predicts the achievable steady-state atomic energies.     

On the translational and rotational motion of nonlinear optical structures as a whole

The possibility of determining the translational and rotational instantaneous velocities of the motion of a field structure as a whole from the field distribution at the same instant of time is demonstrated for nonlinear optical systems described by an evolution equation of a very general form.     

Formation and control of localized structures in nonlinear optical systems

Diffractive effects in passive nonlinear optical resonators can lead to pattern-forming instabilities. When the pattern (in our case, a regular hexagonal lattice of intensity peaks) coexists with the homogeneous solution, soliton-like intensity peaks in the transverse plane can be excited. These solutions have the characteristics of localized structures and are highly degenerate with respect to the peak location. By injecting narrow laser pulses, it is possible to turn on such peaks at desired locations and to turn them off selectively. The conditions to ensure independence among the peaks are described as well. These features suggest the possibility of encoding optical information in the structure of the field profile. (c) 1996 American Institute of Physics.     

Forcing and control of localized states in optical single feedback systems

Under feedback extended nonlinear optical systems spontaneously show a variety of periodic patterns and structures. Control gives new insight into these phenomena and it can open the way for potential application of nonlinear optical structures. We briefly review methods to control localized states in single feedback experiments. Application of a Fourier control method allows to modify interaction behavior of the localized states. As a further approach we study a forcing method, using externally created light fields as additional input to the system. Recent experiments show that the forcing method enables to favor addressing positions for localized structures. We demonstrate static addressing and favoring of addressing positions. We extend the forcing method to a dynamic forcing scheme, which allows to move and reposition localized states. Additionally forcing is used to balance experimental imperfections. PACS 05.45.Gg; 42.60.Jf; 42.65.Tg     

Suppressing nonlinear dynamics induced by external optical feedback in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

A numerical study of using external optical injection to suppress the nonlinear dynamics introduced by external optical feedback in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) has been undertaken. The model under consideration is a master–slave configuration where the master VCSEL provides the continuous wave to control the nonlinear behaviors arising in the slave VCSEL. Simulation results indicate that the feedback-induced nonlinear dynamics (e.g. chaotic, single-periodic, and multi-periodic oscillations), relative intensity noise (RIN) as well as the coherence collapse can be suppressed effectively as long as the injection is strong enough to overcome the nonlinear effects of the feedback.     

Spontaneous motion of localized structures and localized patterns induced by delayed feedback

We study the properties of 2D dissipative structures in a coherently driven optical resonator subjected to a delayed feedback. It has been predicted that delayed feedback can lead to the spontaneous motion of bright localized structures [M. Tlidi et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 103904 (2009)]. We study here the phenomenon in detail. In particular, we show that the delayed feedback induces a spontaneous motion of periodic patterns and dark localized structures. We focus our analysis on nascent optical bistability regime where the space time dynamics is described by a variational Swift-Hohenberg equation. In the absence of delayed feedback, dark localized structures and patterns do not move. This behavior occurs when the product of the delay time and the feedback strength exceeds some critical value.     

A double optical solitary wave in a nonlinear Schroedinger-type equation

A qualitative analysis method to efficiently solve the shallow wave equations is improved, so that a more complicated nonlinear Schr6dinger equation can be considered. By using the detailed study, some quite strange optical solitary waves are obtained in which the bright and dark optical solitary waves are allowed to coexist.     

Hexagonal optical structures in photorefractive crystals with a feedback mirror

A nonlinear theory is presented for the formation of hexagonal optical structures in a photorefractive medium equipped with a feedback mirror. Oppositely directed beams in photorefractive crystals are unstable against the excitation of sideband waves. It is shown here that as this instability evolves to its nonlinear stage, the three-wave interaction between weak sideband beams does not stabilize it, but rather leads to explosive growth of the amplitudes of beams whose transverse wave vectors form angles that are multiples of π/3. As a result, sideband beams at these angles are found to be correlated. A range of parameters is found in which four-wave interactions saturate the explosive instability, which explains the appearance of stable hexagons in the experiment. Outside this region, nonlinearities of higher order saturate the explosive instability, and the process of hexagon generation must be studied numerically. Matrix elements are obtained for the three-and four-wave interactions as functions of the distance to the feedback mirror, and an equation for the time evolution of the sideband wave amplitudes is derived that describes the hexagon generation. A comparison is made with experimental results for the photorefractive crystals KNbO₃ and BaTiO₃. Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 113, 1122–1146 (March 1998)     

Improved coupled-mode analysis of nonlinear distributed feedback structures

Coupled-mode theory is employed to describe the nonlinear behaviour of a distributed feedback grating, including intensity-dependent terms resulting from the periodic variations in the nonlinearity. The improved coupled-mode analysis leads to modified values for the on and off-switching intensities, as demonstrated numerically.On leave from Dpto. Tecnologia Fotónica, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria, 28040 Madrid, Spain.     

Exact self-similar solitary waves and collisions in nonlinear optical media

This paper analyses bright and dark spatial self-similar waves propagation and collision in graded-index nonlinear waveguide amplifiers with self-focusing and self-defocusing Kerr nonlinearities. It finds an appropriate transformation for the first time such that the nonlinear Schrodinger equation （NLSE） with varying coefficients transform into standard NLSE. It obtains one-solitonlike, two-solitonlike and multi-solitonlike self-similar wave solutions by using the transformation. Furthermore, it analyses the features of the self-similar waves and their collisions.     

Pattern formation using optical vortices in a photorefractive single feedback system

We analyze numerically the dynamics of optical patterns in a photorefractive single feedback system where a vortex beam is used as the input beam. Depending on the topological charge of the vortex and on the nonlinear photorefractive coupling strength, we observe different pattern geometries with a rotating dynamics.     

Intensity-dependent nonlinear optical properties in a modulation-doped single quantum well

In the present work, the changes in the intersubband optical absorption coefficients and the refractive index in a modulation-doped quantum well have been investigated theoretically. Within the envelope function approach and the effective mass approximation, the electronic structure of the quantum well is calculated from the self-consistent numerical solution of the coupled Schrödinger-Poisson equations. The analytical expressions of optical properties are obtained by using the compact density-matrix approach. The numerical results GaAs/Al_xGa_1−xAs are presented for typical modulation-doped quantum well system. The linear, third-order nonlinear and total absorption and refractive index changes depending on the doping concentration are investigated as a function of the incident optical intensity and structure parameters, such as quantum well width and stoichiometric ratio. The results show that the doping concentration, the structure parameters and the incident optical intensity have a great effect on the optical characteristics of these structures.     

Delayed feedback as a means of control of noise-induced motion

Time-delayed feedback is exploited for controlling noise-induced motion in coherence resonance oscillators. Namely, under the proper choice of time delay, one can either increase or decrease the regularity of motion. It is shown that in an excitable system, delayed feedback can stabilize the frequency of oscillations against variation of noise strength. Also, for fixed noise intensity, the phenomenon of entrainment of the basic oscillation period by the delayed feedback occurs. This allows one to steer the time scales of noise-induced motion by changing the time delay.     

Control of localized structures in an optical feedback interferometer

We report a detailed experimental investigation of the dependence of localized structures, observed in a nonlinear optical device, on several control parameters. A first step of the study consists in the determination of the region of existence of localized states as a function of the system variables. Subsequently, we show how different control parameters can be used to the aim of tuning several localized structures properties; among these, of particular relevance are the contrast and the amplitude and frequency of the oscillations appearing on the tails of the structures. A discussion of the relation between the localized states here studied and the one predicted by general model for pattern forming systems is also given.     

Flow of optical patterns due to small lateral wave-front shifts in a nonlinear optical feedback system

Flow of a spontaneously formed optical pattern in a nonlinear optical feedback system consisting of a liquid crystal optically addressable spatial light modulator with feedback is induced by a lateral wave-front shift of the feedback light. We demonstrate the dependency of the flow speed on the wave-front shift by tilting an optical flat inserted in the feedback loop. We also demonstrate the application to real-time, high-sensitivity detection of small tilt angles of optical components.     

Observation of subcellular structures of neurons by an illumination mode near-field optical microscope under an optical feedback control

We propose an illumination mode near-field optical microscope operated under an optical feedback for imaging biological specimens in their natural environment. For feedback control, rapidly varying evanescent signal has been generated over the sample surface. It has been found that evanescent signal can be profitably used as a control signal by utilizing its sample feature dependent discrimination sensitivity. Neurons have been successfully observed both in air and in liquid with a resolution well beyond the diffraction limit.