TY - JOUR A1 - Schlottmann, Elisabeth A1 - Schicke, David A1 - Krüger, Felix A1 - Lingnau, Benjamin A1 - Schneider, Christian A1 - Höfling, Sven A1 - Lüdge, Kathy A1 - Porte, Xavier A1 - Reitzenstein, Stephan T1 - Stochastic polarization switching induced by optical injection in bimodal quantum-dot micropillar lasers JF - Optics Express N2 - Mutual coupling and injection locking of semiconductor lasers is of great interest in non-linear dynamics and its applications for instance in secure data communication and photonic reservoir computing. Despite its importance, it has hardly been studied in microlasers operating at mu W light levels. In this context, vertically emitting quantum dot micropillar lasers are of high interest. Usually, their light emission is bimodal, and the gain competition of the associated linearly polarized fundamental emission modes results in complex switching dynamics. We report on selective optical injection into either one of the two fundamental mode components of a bimodal micropillar laser. Both modes can lock to the master laser and influence the non-injected mode by reducing the available gain. We demonstrate that the switching dynamics can be tailored externally via optical injection in very good agreement with our theory based on semi-classical rate equations. (C) 2019 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement KW - Nonlinear Dynamics KW - Bistability KW - Generation KW - Subject KW - Regimes KW - Physics KW - Vcsels Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-228603 VL - 27 IS - 20 ER -