A Coupled-Mode Model for the Fabry-Perot Semiconductor Laser Kink Instability

This paper derives a coupled-mode Fabry-Perot semiconductor laser model from the longitudinal-mode laser rate equations with parabolic gain dispersion. Truncating the full coupled-mode model permits stability analysis of the Fabry-Perot laser kink instability, which is a mode hop with increasing current. Two mechanisms contribute to the mode hop: The Silberberg-Bar-Joseph instability transports energy from higher frequencies to lower frequencies and gain dispersion stops the energy transport. Numerical simulations have shown that higher order carrier modes are excited during intervals of energy transport among the optical modes. These numerical results suggest that modes greatly detuned from the peak gain affect the laser dynamics.