Polarization and tranverse mode nonlinear dynamics in a multimode VCSEL

We theoretically analyze the nonlinear dynamics and routes to chaos in a multimode vertical cavity surface-emitting laser (MM-VCSEL) in free-running operation. Including higher order transverse modes (TMs) results in additional bifurcations at higher currents not found for single-mode VCSELs (SM-VCSELs). The resulting dynamics involve competition between modes with different transverse profiles and polarization and show good qualitative agreement with recent experiments.