Switching of Bistable Injection-Locked Fabry–Pérot Laser by Frequency Detuning Variation

Theoretical study of switching of a bistable injection-locked Fabry-Pérot laser by frequency detuning variation is performed and presented. It has been found that the shortest switching time of the master laser, which allows for the slave laser to be successfully switched by frequency detuning variation, reaches the values of several picoseconds, and up to 200 ps. The disproportion of the slave laser switching times with respect to the switching direction is found (3 versus 0.3 ns), and techniques for its equalization, as well as for minimization of the slave laser total switching time, are presented and discussed. We found that the modest increase of the master laser switching time establishes the balance between the two directions of the slave laser switching, providing almost one order of magnitude improvement in comparison to the results achieved for the shortest possible master laser switching times.