LD01–Third Order Dispersion in Optical Time Delayed Systems: The case of Mode-Locked Vertical External-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers

Time-delayed dynamical systems materialize in situations where distant, point-wise, nonlinear nodes exchange information that propagates at a finite speed. However, they are considered devoid of dispersive effects, which are known to play a leading role in pattern formation and wave dynamics. We show how dispersion may appear naturally in delayed systems and we exemplify our result by studying theoretically and experimentally the influence of third order dispersion in a system composed of coupled optical micro-cavities. Dispersion induced pulse satellites emerge asymmetrically and destabilize the mode-locking regime.