Synchronization in Coupled Laser Arrays with Correlated and Uncorrelated Disorder.

The effect of quenched disorder in a many-body system is experimentally investigated in a controlled fashion. It is done by measuring the phase synchronization (i.e.

Improved phase-locking of laser arrays by pump shaping.

We introduce a method to enhance the phase-locking quality and duration of an end-pumped laser array by precisely shaping its pump beam to overlap with the array. Shaping the pump beam results in a significant improvement in lasing efficiency and reduces the pump power required to reach the lasing threshold compared to a typical uniform pumping configuration. Our approach involves shaping a highly incoherent laser beam by addressing smaller segments of the beam with higher local spatial coherence.

Improved laser phase locking with intra-cavity adaptive optics.

Phase locking of coupled lasers is severely hindered by the spread in their natural lasing frequencies. We present an intra-cavity adaptive optics method that reduces the frequency spread and thereby improves phase locking. Using an intra-cavity spatial light modulator and an iterative optimization algorithm, we demonstrate a fourfold enhancement of phase locking 450 coupled lasers, as quantified by the peak intensity and the inverse participation ratio of the far-field output distributions.

Anyonic-parity-time symmetry in complex-coupled lasers.

Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians, and particularly parity-time (PT) and anti-PT symmetric Hamiltonians, play an important role in many branches of physics, from quantum mechanics to optical systems and acoustics. Both the PT and anti-PT symmetries are specific instances of a broader class known as anyonic-PT symmetry, where the Hamiltonian and the PT operator satisfy a generalized commutation relation. Here, we study theoretically these novel symmetries and demonstrate them experimentally in coupled lasers systems.

Chiral States in Coupled-Lasers Lattice by On-Site Complex Potential.

The ability to control the chirality of physical devices is of great scientific and technological importance, from investigations of topologically protected edge states in condensed matter systems to wavefront engineering, isolation, and unidirectional communication. When dealing with large networks of oscillators, the control over the chirality of the bulk states becomes significantly more complicated and requires complex apparatus for generating asymmetric coupling or artificial gauge fields. Here we present a new approach for a precise control over the chirality of the bulk state of a triangular array of hundreds of symmetrically coupled lasers, by introducing a weak non-Hermitian complex potential, requiring only local on-site control of loss and frequency.