Stable polarization self-modulation in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

The characteristics of polarization self-modulation in a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) were studied for frequencies up to ≈9 GHz both experimentally and theoretically. Polarization self-modulation was obtained by rotating the linearly polarized output of the VCSEL by 90° and reinjecting it into the laser. Experimentally we simultaneously recorded time traces, optical and radio-frequency spectra. We found for increasing modulation frequencies that the output characteristics changed from square-wave to sinusoidal and the VCSEL system assumed new polarization eigenstates that are different from the free-running VCSEL eigenstates. We modeled polarization self-modulation as an interband process and found a good qualitative agreement between our experimental and numerical results.