Delay induced instabilities of cavity solitons in passive and active laser systems

Cavity solitons are localized spots of light in the transverse section of passive and active optical devices: broad area lasers and semiconductor cavities with external coherent pumping. Under certain conditions a drift instability can appear in these devices leading to a transverse motion of cavity solitons. Such motion in distributed dynamical systems of different nature can be induced by various effects, e.g., walk-off, convection, phase gradient, vorticity, finite carrier relaxation times, the so-called Ising-Bloch transition, symmetry breaking due to off-axis feedback or resonator detuning. Recently it was shown within the framework of the Swift-Hohenberg equation [1] that a drift instability leading to a spontaneous motion of localized structures in arbitrary direction can be induced by a delayed feedback term. More recently the appearance of nontrivial instabilities resulting in the formation of oscillons, soliton rings, labyrinth patterns, or moving structures was demonstrated in this system [2].