title: Cavity solitons in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers.
abstract: We investigate a control of the motion of localized structures (LSs) of light by means of delay feedback in the transverse section of a broad area nonlinear optical system. The delayed feedback is found to induce a spontaneous motion of a solitary LS that is stationary and stable in the absence of feedback. We focus our analysis on an experimentally relevant system, namely the vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL). We first present an experimental demonstration of the appearance of LSs in a 80 μm aperture VCSEL. Then, we theoretically investigate the self-mobility properties of the LSs in the presence of a time-delayed optical feedback and analyse the effect of the feedback phase and the carrier lifetime on the delay-induced spontaneous drift instability of these structures. We show that these two parameters affect strongly the space-time dynamics of two-dimensional LSs. We derive an analytical formula for the threshold associated with drift instability of LSs and a normal form equation describing the slow time evolution of the speed of the moving structure.
authors.affiliation: Weierstrass Institute, Mohrenstrasse 39, 10117 Berlin, Germany Saint Petersburg State University, Faculty of Physics, St Petersburg, Russia vladimir@wias-berlin.de.
authors.forename: A G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Vladimirov
authors.affiliation: Weierstrass Institute, Mohrenstrasse 39, 10117 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pimenov
authors.affiliation: Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Münster, Wilhelm-Klemm-Strasse 9, 48149 Münster, Germany.
authors.forename: S V
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Gurevich
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Physics and Photonics (IR-TONA), Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium Institute of Solid State Physics, 72 Tzarigradsko Chaussee Boulevard, 1784 Sofia, Bulgaria.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Panajotov
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Physics and Photonics (IR-TONA), Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium Université Libre de Bruxelles (U.L.B.), Faculté des Sciences, CP. 231, Campus Plaine, 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Averlant
authors.affiliation: Université Libre de Bruxelles (U.L.B.), Faculté des Sciences, CP. 231, Campus Plaine, 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tlidi
keywords: bifurcations; cavity solitons; delayed feedback; drift instability; semiconductor lasers