Semiconductor laser with phase-conjugate feedback: Dynamics and bifurcations

This paper presents the dynamics and bifurcations of a semiconductor laser subject to instantaneous phase-conjugate feedback. Recently, the behavior of such a laser has been explored by means of bifurcation diagrams. However, the exact nature of the involved dynamics and bifurcations remained unclear. Here we present a detailed study of the changes of the dynamics as the feedback strength is varied. Most prominent are symmetry-breaking and -restoring bifurcations, tori and their bifurcations, and a sudden transition between chaos and a stable limit cycle due to a saddle-node bifurcation of limit cycles.