Generation of broadband optical chaos at mid-infrared wavelength with an interband cascade laser

Nonlinear dynamics at mid-infrared wavelength is of interest for various applications but has been mainly limited to quantum cascade lasers so far. In this article, we show that interband cascade lasers can generate complex optical chaos with bandwidth in the GHz range and this outperforms the performances of quantum cascade laser chaos. The chaos nature of our signal is confirmed by a thorough time-series analysis. Modeling of the semiconductor laser under short-cavity external optical feedback allows confirming the high bias chaos operation that we observe experimentally. These results pave the way for applications at mid-infrared wavelength, such as private free-space communication.