Chaos in coherence modulation: bifurcations of an oscillator generating optical delay fluctuations

A new chaos generator is described that produces chaotic fluctuations of the optical-path difference in a coherence modulator driven electrically by a nonlinear delayed-feedback loop. Numerical simulations and experimental results are reported. A closed branch of periodic solutions bounded by a forward and a reverse Hopf bifurcation is observed for the first time, to our knowledge, for this type of nonlinear dynamical system. (C) 2001 Optical Society of America.