Optical vortices crystals: Spontaneous generation in nonlinear semiconductor microcavities

Science

Volumn 285, Issue 5425, 1999, Pages 230-233

  Scheuer, J ^a   Orenstein, M ^a  

^a TECHNION ISRAEL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY   (Israel)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; CRYSTAL; LASER; LIGHT; OPTICS; PRIORITY JOURNAL; SEMICONDUCTOR;

EID: 0033538437     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.285.5425.230     Document Type: Article

References (20)

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2. V. Yu. Bazhenov, M. S. Soskin, M. V. Vasnetsov, J. Mod. Opt. 39, 985 (1992); G. Indebetouw, ibid. 40, 73 (1993); I. V. Basistiy, et al., Opt. Comm. 103, 422 (1993); J. F. Nye and M. V. Berry, Proc. R. Soc. London Ser. A, 336, 165 (1974).
3. V. Yu. Bazhenov, M. S. Soskin, M. V. Vasnetsov, J. Mod. Opt. 39, 985 (1992); G. Indebetouw, ibid. 40, 73 (1993); I. V. Basistiy, et al., Opt. Comm. 103, 422 (1993); J. F. Nye and M. V. Berry, Proc. R. Soc. London Ser. A, 336, 165 (1974).
4. V. Yu. Bazhenov, M. S. Soskin, M. V. Vasnetsov, J. Mod. Opt. 39, 985 (1992); G. Indebetouw, ibid. 40, 73 (1993); I. V. Basistiy, et al., Opt. Comm. 103, 422 (1993); J. F. Nye and M. V. Berry, Proc. R. Soc. London Ser. A, 336, 165 (1974).
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13. Ordered arrays of dark hexagons were predicted for Kerr medium by D'Alessandro and Firth (4).
14. G. P. Agrawal and N. K. Dutta, Long Wavelength Semiconductor Lasers (Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1986).
15. J. Scheuer, D. Arbel, M. Orenstein, personal communication.
16. A. Yariv, Optical Electronics (Saunders, Philadelphia, PA, ed. 4, 1991).
17. n is the Gauss-Laguerre modes. The functions satisfying 2p + l = constant have the same propagation constant (that is, the same wavelength in the cavity) and form a wavelength-degenerated family.
18. L. A. Coldern and S. W. Corzine, Diode lasers and Photonic Integrated Circuits (Wiley-Interscience, New York, 1995).
19. An additional control parameter, σ, is included in our analysis to correctly describe a local width imposed by either the boundary conditions or local inhomogeneity. The width parameter transforms the uniformly distributed spectral models of an unbounded problem into a banded spectrum. The almost-degenerated wavelength modes within each band are readily locked by the medium nonlinearity to form the complex field pattern. Both the lateral inhomogeniety and the complex nonlinear medium are the required ingredients for the pattern formation. This result is generally applicable to vortex formation in various fields of science. To the best of our knowledge, all such patterns reported previously (experimental and theoretical) were obtained in bounded nonlinear systems (including periodic boundaries) (3,-6, 10). The specific details of the width parameter in our system are related to the inhomogeneous pumping and thermally induced index gradient (thermal lensing) that are well known for semiconductor lasers.
20. We thank the Israel Ministry of Science and Technology for partially supporting this research and one of the reviewers for helpful remarks.