Eur. Phys. J. D 41, 349-354 (2007)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2006-00238-4

Combination of two basic types of synchronization in a coupled semiconductor laser system

¹ School of Physical Science and Technology, Suzhou University, Suzhou, Jiangsu, 215006, P.R. China
² Basic Course Department, Suzhou Polytechnical Institute of Agriculture, Suzhou, Jiangsu, 215004, P.R. China

Corresponding authors: ^a liangwu@suda.edu.cn - ^b szhu@suda.edu.cn

Received: 13 March 2006
Revised: 6 September 2006
Published online: 1 November 2006

Abstract

Combination of two basic types of synchronization, anticipatory synchronization and lagged synchronization, is investigated numerically between two coupled semiconductor lasers. It is found that lagged synchronization produced by a backward coupling with a suitable delay can combine with the originally hidden anticipatory synchronization and produce a type of synchronization overcoming the original lagged synchronization produced by a forward coupling. We study the combination synchronization phenomenon when the delay of the backward coupling is different from that of the original anticipatory synchronization. Our results suggest that the synchronization combination phenomenon might allow an interpretation of an experimental observation by Sivaprakasam et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 154101 (2001)] that the anticipating time is irrespective of the external-cavity round trip time, which to date remains to be understood.