Coherent interactions and long term evolution of ultrafast transients in a semiconductor laser

The coherent interaction between standing waves of a CW laser and an optical pulse injected into the cavity, and the formation and subsequent evolution of ´dark pulses´ are investigated. The persistence of the dark pulses and the dark-pulse bright-pulse oscillations can be attributed to coherent effects. The simulation method is used for studying long term evolution of coherent effects in semiconductor laser cavities such as the generation of mode-locked pulse trains, optical clock recovery and external optical feedback.