Optimizing optically injected semiconductor lasers for periodic dynamics with reduced sensitivity to perturbations

Optically injected semiconductor lasers generate limit-cycle dynamics of period-one and period-two oscillations at microwave frequencies. At specific operating points, the periodic oscillations can be rendered insensitive to small-signal fluctuation in the operating conditions of the master and slave lasers. Periodic oscillations with low-sensitivity to fluctuation in the slave laser bias current, injection strength, or detuning frequency can be enhanced through tailoring the intrinsic laser parameters. Here, through numerical calculations, the effects of each intrinsic parameter on the various low-sensitivity operating points are demonstrated through detailed maps as functions of the operating parameters. For enhanced low sensitivity to bias-current and injection-strength fluctuations, a laser with a small linewidth enhancement factor is favored. Conversely, a large linewidth enhancement factor enhances low sensitivity to detuning-frequency fluctuations. Lasers with a more negative value of the gain saturation factor confine the regions of low sensitivity to fluctuations in the bias current and detuning frequency to the extrema of the periodic oscillation frequency. The laser relaxation rates that enhance the periodic-oscillation dynamic regions of an optically injected semiconductor laser, in turn, increases the regions of the various types of low-sensitivity operating points.