Tailoring wave chaos in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers via polarization control.

We demonstrate that polarization control in combination with the geometrical shape affects wave chaos phenomena in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs). In a grating-polarization-stabilized VCSEL, we demonstrate wave chaos in one polarization mode and a transition from wave chaos to regular behavior in the other orthogonal polarization mode. We quantify the amount of chaoticity via the Brody nearest-neighbor distribution. Comparing with a reference VCSEL without a surface-grating, we explain these results and their injection current dependence by the surface-grating-induced mode selection and a change in the effective resonator shape.