Complex active optical networks: the LANER

Giovanni Giacomelli

The lasing network (LANER) is a complex active optical network, which can be experimentally realized with optical fibers linked each other with couplers and with one or more coherently amplifying sections. The LANER displays a standard laser behavior, with a coherent emission characterized by a complicated intensity spectrum. A linear theoretical description shows how the LANER can be considered as a generalization of the laser with the physical network acting as a complex cavity. Experiments in simple configurations report the evidence of lasing action and its characterization, with examples of spectra of the detected emitted intensity are in a phenomenological agreement with the numerical findings of the theory.

GG is active in the field of nonlinear optical system since the beginning of the 90’s, with interests ranging from laser physics and pattern formation, to stochastic process and long delayed dynamical systems, both experimentally in different laser setups and theoretically in fundamental models and phenomenological descriptions.