MISIS and QRate: SIMLAD (SIMulating LAser Dynamics)

2023: SIMLAD Program Development

Specialists from the University MISIS the Russian and the company QRate have created a program that can help import substitution telecommunication in devices. SIMLAD (SIMulating LAser Dynamics) simulates new ways to transfer data without repeating existing ones. It allows you to reproduce complex behavior semiconductor lasers in quantum key distribution devices, as well as in classical telecommunications applications. MISIS announced this on October 19, 2023.

As far as we know, there was still no convenient window application for modeling laser dynamics in the public domain. Our goal was to create a program that, by pressing one or two buttons, could graphically present the results of numerical integration of the speed equations of laser dynamics. We hope that our program will be very useful to engineers and researchers who are engaged in low-level design of telecommunications systems, in particular, quantum communication systems, and will help them find new ways to modulate and transmit data, "said co-author Igor Kudryashov, a researcher at QRate.

The program can recreate laser spectra, their transfer functions, optical injection, phase diffusion, direct modulation with arbitrary pulses, temperature effects and other phenomena in semiconductor lasers.

To analyze the dynamics of semiconductor lasers, including their stochastic, that is, unpredictable, properties, SIMLAD uses the method of speed laser equations. This approach is a powerful tool for studying single-mode semiconductor lasers, which are workhorses in the field of telecommunications, as well as in the relatively young field of quantum communication, where it is often required to use lasers in modes of operation that are never used in standard telecommunications systems. For example, direct phase modulation by optical injection is increasingly used to create quantum states in quantum key distribution (KPC). Although optical injection laser systems have long been used in telecommunications, direct phase modulation methods used in KRK have been developed quite recently, and a theoretical analysis of this approach was published only in 2021 by QRate researchers.

In fact, for conventional telecommunications lasers, you can come up with quite a few non-standard applications. Therefore, modeling and analyzing the effect of various parameters on laser operation is still extremely important in the design of telecommunications systems. However, not all engineers and even scientists have enough time to understand in detail the speed laser equations, especially the stochastic differential equations, and the entire set of parameters included in them. We hope that our program will help researchers and developers in this task. The program code is publicly available. Our goal is to provide the user with a simple window interface for fast visualization of laser radiation, spectrum, transfer function, etc., and simplify their work, - said the head of work Roman Shakhova, head of the laboratory of the element base of quantum communications at NITU MISIS.