Characteristics of bistable localized emission states in broad-area vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with frequency-selective feedback

Small-area bistable lasing spots (about 10 μm full width at half maximum) can be created at different positions within the aperture of a broad-area vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (aperture diameter 80 μm) with frequency-selective feedback from a grating in Littrow configuration, and an additional pinhole localizing feedback to a part of the laser. Their characteristics are analyzed depending on the grating tuning, injection current, and feedback strength. These spots are considered to be good candidates for self-localized cavity solitons, if the perturbation by boundaries can be reduced using devices with larger diameter.