Abstract

Optical feedback with orthogonal polarization enables frequency sweep of semiconductor lasers and leads to frequency bistability when a resonant medium is used to filter the reinjected radiation. Here, we explore a configuration with two lasers coupled through mutual injection. Each laser injects and receives light with a polarization orthogonal to the plane of emission. Both injections are independently filtered by a resonant atomic vapor. We show that this more versatile version also exhibits bistable states, and that it is possible to reduce the laser frequency jitter as well as to invert its frequency hysteresis cycle on demand (from counterclockwise to clockwise and vice versa). Experimental demonstration is done with diode lasers emitting around 780 nm, using Rb thermal vapors as nonlinear filters.

© 2016 Optical Society of America

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