Exploring the hyperchaos of mid-infrared lasersChaos, often popularized as the ‘butterfly
Exploring the hyperchaos of mid-infrared lasersChaos, often popularized as the ‘butterfly effect’, describes the irregular phenomenon of deterministic systems. Based on the unique features of sensitivity to initial conditions and unpredictability of future evolutions, chaos from laser diodes has found applications in private optical communication links, high-rate random number generations, Lidar systems, and optical computing networks. However, most chaotic light sources are operated in the near-infrared range, and hence the applications are limited to this spectral range as well. A Chinese team of scientists, led by Professor Cheng Wang from ShanghaiTech University, China recently reported a mid-infrared hyperchaos source in Light: Science & Applications. The chaos generation relies on interband cascade lasers, one major type of laser source in the mid-infrared regime. The lasers without any external perturbation usually produce continuous-wave output. In order to trigger the chaos production, the team applied an external perturbation known as 'optical feedback’ to the lasers. Optical feedback is a technique where the laser output is reflected back to the laser cavity through a reflection mirror. The delayed light interacts nonlinearly with the laser device and generates chaos under certain operation conditions.Read more. -- source link
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