Anomalous single-mode lasing induced by nonlinearity and the non-Hermitian skin effect

Single-mode operation is a desirable but elusive property for lasers operating at high pump powers. Typically, single-mode lasing is attainable close to threshold, but increasing the pump power gives rise to multiple lasing peaks due to inter-modal gain competition. We propose a laser with the oppos...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inarXiv.org
Main Authors Zhu, B F, Wang, Q, Leykam, D, Xue, H R, Wang, Q J, Chong, Y D
Format Paper Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 01.08.2022
Subjects
Couplings
High power lasers
Laser arrays
Lasing
Lattice vibration
Nonlinearity
Optical resonators
Physics - Optics
Single mode operation
Skin effect
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Summary:Single-mode operation is a desirable but elusive property for lasers operating at high pump powers. Typically, single-mode lasing is attainable close to threshold, but increasing the pump power gives rise to multiple lasing peaks due to inter-modal gain competition. We propose a laser with the opposite behavior: multi-mode lasing occurs at low output powers, but pumping beyond a certain value produces a single lasing mode, with all other candidate modes experiencing negative effective gain. This behavior arises in a lattice of coupled optical resonators with non-fine-tuned asymmetric couplings, and is caused by an interaction between nonlinear gain saturation and the non-Hermitian skin effect. The single-mode lasing is observed in both frequency domain and time domain simulations. It is robust against on-site disorder, and scales up to large lattice sizes. This finding might be useful for implementing high-power laser arrays.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2202.13621