Instability of optical phase synchronization between chaotic semiconductor lasers

The instability of optical phase chaos synchronization between semiconductor lasers under master–slave open-loop configuration is investigated. The phase difference between the master and slave lasers is obtained and analyzed in experiment by heterodyne detection and Hilbert transform, and in simulation by solving the rate equations. The results show that the phase difference only maintains in a short duration time and then jumps to another value. A statistical analysis shows that both duration time and jumping values are random, proving that the phase chaos synchronization is unstable. A theoretical analysis shows that the instability of phase synchronization is caused by the jumping of the external cavity mode in the master laser.