Spontaneous formation of vector vortex beams in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with feedback

The spontaneous emergence of vector vortex beams with non-uniform polarization distribution is reported in a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) with frequency-selective feedback. Antivortices with a hyperbolic polarization structure and radially polarized vortices are demonstrated. They exist close to and partially coexist with vortices with uniform and non-uniform polarization distributions characterized by four domains of pairwise orthogonal polarization. The spontaneous formation of these nontrivial structures in a simple, nearly isotropic VCSEL system is remarkable and the vector vortices are argued to have soliton-like properties.