Regular Article

Neuromorphic dynamics with optically injected quantum dot lasers^★

¹ Department of Physics, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland
² Tyndall National Institute, University College Cork, Lee Maltings, Dyke Parade, Cork, Ireland
³ Institute of Photonics, SUPA Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, TIC Centre, 99 George Street, Glasgow G1 1RD, UK

^a e-mail: bryan.kelleher@ucc.ie

Received: 15 December 2018
Received in final form: 1 June 2019
Published online: 9 September 2019

Abstract

Optically injected quantum dot lasers display many unique nonlinear phenomena and are in particular, excellent testbeds for different forms of excitability. We analyse the recent discovery of Type II excitability in such devices. An optothermal instability leads to the phenomenon and while an underlying Hopf bifurcation is ultimately responsible for the observation, intriguingly there are two potential routes: One via a subcritical bifurcation and an associated bistable region and the other via a supercritical bifurcation and an associated canard explosion.