Rogue waves are devastating extreme events that occur in many natural systems, and a lot of work has focused on predicting and understanding their origin. In optically injected semiconductor lasers rogue waves are rare ultra-high pulses that sporadically occur in the laser chaotic output intensity. Here we show that these optical rogue waves can be predicted with long anticipation time, that they are generated by a crisis-like process, and that noise can be employed to either enhance or suppress their probability of occurrence. By providing a good understanding of the mechanisms triggering and controlling the rogue waves, our results can contribute to improve the performance of injected lasers and can also enable new experiments to test if these mechanisms are also involved in other natural systems where rogue waves have been observed.

Peer Reviewed