Chaotic dynamics and chaos control in nonlinear laser systems

Chaotic dynamics and chaos control have become a great challenge in nonlinear laser systems and its advances are reviewed in this article mainly based on the ring cavity laser systems. The principle and stability conditions for time-delay feedback control are analyzed and applied to chaos control in the laser systems. Other advanced methods of chaos control, such as weak spatial perturbation and occasional proportional feedback technique, are discussed. Prospects of chaos control for applications (such as improvement of laser power and performance , synchronized chaos secure communication and information processing) are pointed out finally.