Optical rogue waves in a laser with saturable absorber

Extreme events in optics have been recently attracted a great attention due to the well-known analogy between optics and hydrodynamics. In this contribution, we show numerical results about extreme events occurring in the field emitted by a monolithic broad-area semiconductor laser with saturable absorber. In suitable parameter conditions, the field emitted by this system may show a spatio-temporal turbulent profile where extreme events are possible. At difference from previous literature about optical rogue waves in two-dimensional (2D) transverse spatial systems, we have developed a numerical method for the individuation of the spatio-temporal maxima of the transverse field intensity. This method allows a comparison, for example, with the hydrodynamical definition of “significant wave height”, corresponding to the mean value of the wave height of the highest third of the waves. © 2017, Education and Upbringing Publishing. All rights reserved.