Refractory period of an excitable semiconductor laser with optical injection.

Garbin, B; Dolcemascolo, A; Prati, F; Javaloyes, J; Tissoni, G; Barland, S · Phys Rev E · 2017

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Injection-locked semiconductor lasers can be brought to a neuronlike excitable regime when parameters are set close to the unlocking transition. Here we study experimentally the response of this system to repeated optical perturbations and observe the existence of a refractory period during which perturbations are not able to elicit an excitable response. The results are analyzed via simulations of a set of dynamical equations which reproduced adequately the experimental results.