Semiconductor ring laser subject to delayed optical feedback: Bifurcations and stability

We study semiconductor ring lasers subject to delayed optical feedback from one or two short external cavities. In case of two cavities we consider the feedback strengths and phases to be either symmetric or asymmetric feedback. When feedback is symmetric, the laser operates in a bi-directional continuous wave or periodic regime for most parameter values. Only for some small parameter regions complex dynamics, such as quasi-periodicity and chaos are obtained. When the feedback is asymmetric complex dynamical regimes, including chaos, are obtained in large parameter regions. We explain complex dynamical regimes obtained in both symmetric and asymmetric feedback cases by linear stability of the stationary solutions calculated using DDE-BIFTOOL. Crown Copyright (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.