My activity focuses on the experimental and theoretical study of
semiconductor lasers. I am interested in an special type of
semiconductor laser, the vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL).
This laser is an example of microlaser (with micrometric dimensions).
Nowadays VCSELs are used as emitters in local area networks, in optical
interconnections, optical mice, sensors... I am interested in a better
understanding of the characteristics of the light emitted by those
devices, not only in their solitary operation, but also when they are
subject to light emitted by another laser (optical injection) or by the
same VCSEL (optical feedback). At the present time most of my efforts
are devoted to the Optical Communications Lab of the Instituto de Física
de Cantabria. We study how the fast changes of the polarization or the
transverse modes emitted by the VCSEL when it is subject to optical
injection can be utilized to get several functionalities of all-optical
signal processing: optical memories, inversion and regeneration of the
signal. High-speed all-optical signal processing is of great interest
for future applications in computing or in optical communication
systems.
