Excitable phase slips in an injection-locked single-mode quantum-dot laser

An experimental study of the dynamics of a single-mode quantum-dot semiconductor laser undergoing optical injection is described for the first time, to our knowledge. In particular, the first observation of excitable pulses near the locking boundaries for both positive and negative detuning is reported, indicating locking via a saddle-node bifurcation for both signs of the detuning. The phase evolution of the slave electric-field during pulsing was measured and confirmed that the pulses result from 2 pi phase slips. The interpulse-time statistics were analyzed, and a Kramers-like distribution was obtained. (c) 2009 Optical Society of America