Tailoring light polarization in vertical cavity surface emitting lasers by isotropic optical feedback from an extremely short external cavity

摘要

The authors experimentally show that isotropic optical feedback from an extremely short external cavity can induce switching between the two fundamental transverse modes with orthogonal linear polarization of otherwise (without optical feedback) polarization stable vertical cavity surface emitting laser. The switching currents and the hysteresis width can be widely tuned by varying the external cavity length. Moreover, by a proper choice of the optical feedback parameters, the emission can be stabilized in any of the two linearly polarized modes.