Coherence and incoherence in an optical comb

Phys Rev Lett. 2014 Jun 6;112(22):224101. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.224101. Epub 2014 Jun 2.

Abstract

We demonstrate a coexistence of coherent and incoherent modes in the optical comb generated by a passively mode-locked quantum dot laser. This is experimentally achieved by means of optical linewidth, radio frequency spectrum, and optical spectrum measurements and confirmed numerically by a delay-differential equation model showing excellent agreement with the experiment. We interpret the state as a chimera state.