Elsevier, Physics Letters A, 5(374), p. 739-743
DOI: 10.1016/j.physleta.2009.11.070
Full text: Unavailable
We report theoretically and experimentally on excitability in semiconductor ring lasers in order to reveal a mechanism of excitability, general for systems close to Z2-symmetry. The global shapes of the invariant manifolds of a saddle in the vicinity of a homoclinic loop determine the origin of excitability and the features of the excitable pulses. We show how to experimentally make a semiconductor ring laser excitable by breaking the Z2-symmetry in a controlled way. The experiments confirm the theoretical predictions.