In the early 1980s, the late luminary Tito Arecchi was the first to highlight the existence of chaos in a laser model. Since then, along with several colleagues, he developed many important lines of research in this field, such as generalized multistability, laser with injected signal, laser with delayed feedback and the worldwide accepted classification of lasers of A, B and C, depending on their typical relaxation rates. Later, chaos control and synchronization were investigated in lasers and other systems, providing innovative schemes. Very recently, in his last contribution to laser physics, the model of the laser with feedback demonstrating its universal features was revisited. This book aims to present the research activity of Prof. Arecchi and his colleagues in the domain of nonlinear dynamics of lasers, since his seminal works of 1982 till the latest. Also included is our last contribution on jerk dynamics of laser's minimal universal model and a brief history of the discovery of laser where the reader will discover or rediscover many anecdotes about it.
Riccardo Meucci was born in Scandicci (Firenze), Italy, in 1956. He received the doctor degree in Physics in 1982 and the specialization degree in Optics (PhD), both from University of Florence, Italy. From 1984 to 1987, he was research fellow at the Istituto di Cibernetica of the National Research Council (CNR) of Italy. Since 1987, he joined the National Institute of Optics, Firenze, Italy, where he holds the position of Research Director. He is also contract professor of mathematical methods for optics at the University of Firenze. Riccardo Meucci is associate editor for the International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos (IJBC) from 1 January 2018.
His research interests include nonlinear dynamics, chaos, control of chaos, synchronization and infrared digital holography.
He is IEEE Senior Member since 17 November 2018 and Optica (former OSA) member.