Incoherent optical triggering of excitable pulses in an injection-locked semiconductor laser

Abstract

We experimentally study the response of an injection-locked quantum dot semiconductor laser in the excitable regime to perturbations from an external, incoherent laser. We show that excitable pulses may be triggered both for perturbation wavelengths close to that of the quantum dot device and wavelengths detuned even by a few tens of nanometers.