Presidential Young Investigator Award: Nonlinear Phenomena in Optical Fibers and Semiconductor Lasers

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The PI has received a Presidential Young Investigator award and describes his research as follows: The goal of this project is to study the nonlinear dynamics of optical fibers and of semiconductor lasers. The intensity-dependent refractive index of optical fibers leads to certain instabilities of the polarization state of a light beam in the fiber. We plan to extend our theoretical studies of this phenomenon to include group velocity dispersion, dissipation, fiber perturbations, and counter-propagating pulse geometries. Recent work on chaos in modulated semiconductor lasers will be extended to the dynamics of semiconductor laser arrays. Theoretical studies will be aimed at elucidating parameter ranges that lead to a spatio-temporal chaotic output of these lasers. Stabilization by means of an injected signal will also be studied. This PI has received a Presidential Young Investigator award. He will conduct research on the nonlinear dynamical behavior of semiconductor lasers and of the optical fibers used for their transmission. Theoretical studies of chaotic behavior in semiconductor lasers will be conducted and methods to stabilize the laser output will be investigated.