Clusters of localized structures in cavity soliton laser: Properties of the homoclinic snaking bifurcation diagram.

We demonstrate experimentally the coexistence of several of these states in a cavity soliton laser and show the dependance of the associated bifurcation diagram on the control parameters. A Cavity Soliton Laser (CSL) is a device able to generate single and multi-peaks localized structures, without the injection of an external coherent beam. We realized experimentally the CSL by mutually coupling in face to face configuration two broad-area vertical cavity surface emitting lasers, one operated as amplifier and the second operated as saturable absorber. The lasers we use are two nominally identical VCSELs of 200 mum diameter. They are mounted in a mutually coupled configuration forming a self imaging cavity. For suitable package temperature and current settings, both lasers interact and localized structures can be switched in the transverse profile of the system.