Anatomy of a polarization switch of a vertical-cavity semiconductor laser
Using a streak camera we have measured the three Stokes polarization parameters during a polarization switch of a vertical-cavity semiconductor laser. The switch occurs along a corkscrew path on the Poincare sphere and takes on average a few nanoseconds; this value agrees with a theoretical treatment based upon the Fokker-Planck equation.
Willemsen
MB
Huygens Laboratory, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9504, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands.
van Exter MP
Woerdman
JP