NONLINEAR DYNAMICS OF A LASER-DIODE SUBJECTED TO BOTH OPTICAL AND ELECTRONIC FEEDBACK

It is demonstrated that tailored optoelectronic feedback can be used s electively to excite periodic dynamical output from external cavity se miconductor lasers undergoing a period-doubling bifurcation cascade on the route to the chaotic coherence-collapse regime. The optoelectroni c feedback can effectively suppress or invert the bifurcation sequence so that low-order periodic motion can he resonantly excited from high -order periodic The robustness of coherence-collapse control to intrin sic laser-diode noise is investigated. The application of the techniqu e in chaotic communications and its role in chaos control are discusse d. (C) 1997 Optical Society of America.