Characteristics of cavity solitons and drifting excitations in broad-area vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with frequency-selective feedback

The properties of cavity solitons in a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser with frequency-selective feedback from a diffraction grating are characterized and analyzed. The solitons have a typical width of 10 mu m and a linewidth of down to 10 MHz, i.e., they represent small microlasers. Their equilibrium spatial location arises from an interplay of spatial inhomogeneities in the device and a grating-induced force which depends on detuning. Transients involve the passage through a self-pulsing state. Due to the grating-induced advection, drifting excitations are found, which might have applications in all-optical delay lines though their solitonic nature remains to be established.