Complete and partial time-delay signature suppression in a laser array

Abstract

We model dynamics of a quantum dot based micropillar laser array subject to the time-delayed optical feedback. The global coupling provided by the feedback generates a rich set of various instabilities including chaotic regimes with strong time-delay signature in the autocorrelation function. We demonstrate that the dispersion of the array coupling phases leads to effective suppression of the time-delay signature due to the dispersion of the system’s internal timescales. We find that the transition to the complete suppression of the time-delay signature appears via a chimera state where highly correlated and non-correlated laser outputs coexist. The degree of correlation in the chimera state depends on the coupling phase dispersion.