Period-doubling and total mode-locking, and chaotic pulsations in a GaAs ridge wave-guide external-cavity diode laser

We report on the experimental observations of a period-doubling route to chaos and a total mode-locking between two lowest-order lateral modes of a GaAs ridge wave-guide diode laser at 795 nm. A self-starting passively mode-locking was achieved in an extended-cavity diode laser (ECDL) operating in a gain saturation regime. In the period-doubling mode-locked state, the RF spectra associated with the coherently coupled lateral TE(0) and TE(1) modes, consisted of harmonics (nf(rep)/2, n is an integer) of the half of pulse repetition rate f(rep)/2 and the period (2T) of the pulse train was two-times longer than the pulse round-trip time T. On the other hand, in the total mode-locked state, the RF spectra and the pulse train corresponding to the TE(0) and TE(1) modes had exactly the same features compared to those of the period-doubling mode-locked state, except the RF spectra and the pulse train of the TE(1) mode were shifted by f(ref)/4 in frequency and by T in time, respectively, indicating the pulses actually traveled alternatively through two lateral modes. The total mode-locking and also chaotic pulsations were observed at slightly different operation parameters, e.g. at different feedback angle of the grating, which was used as an output coupler of the ECDL.