title: Excitability in a semiconductor laser with saturable absorber.
abstract: We show that a monolithic and compact vertical cavity laser with intracavity saturable absorber can emit short excitable pulses. These calibrated optical pulses can be excited as a response to an input perturbation whose amplitude is above a certain threshold. Subnanosecond excitable response is promising for applications to novel all-optical devices for information processing or logical gates.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Photonique et de Nanostructures, LPN-CNRS, Route de Nozay, 91460 Marcoussis, France. sylvain.barbay@lpn.cnrs.fr
authors.forename: Sylvain
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Barbay
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kuszelewicz
authors.forename: Alejandro M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Yacomotti