Radically Tunable Ultrafast Photonic Oscillators via Differential Pumping

Abstract

We present the controllability capabilities for the limit cycles of an extremely tunable photonic oscillator, consisting of two coupled semiconductor lasers. We show that this system supports stable limit cycles with frequencies ranging from a few to more than a hundred GHz that are characterized by a widely varying degree of asymmetry between the oscillations of the two lasers. These dynamical features are directly controllable via differential pumping as well as optical frequency detuning of the two lasers, suggesting a multi-functional oscillator for chip-scale radio-frequency photonics applications.