Correlations in Electrically Coupled Chaotic Lasers

We show how two electrically coupled semiconductor lasers having optical feedback can present simultaneous anti-phase correlated fast power fluctuations, and strong in-phase synchronized spikes of chaotic power drops. This quite counter intuitive phenomenon is demonstrated experimentally and confirmed by numerical solutions of a deterministic dynamical system of rate equations. The occurrence of negative and positive cross correlation between parts of a complex system according to time scales, as proved in our simple arrangement, is relevant for the understanding and characterization of collective properties in complex networks.