Broadband chaos generated by an opto-electronic oscillator

We study an opto-electronic time-delay oscillator that displays high-speed chaotic behavior with a flat, broad power spectrum. The chaotic state coexists with a linearly-stable fixed point, which, when subjected to a finite-amplitude perturbation, loses stability initially via a periodic train of ultrafast pulses. We derive an approximate map that does an excellent job of capturing the observed instability. The oscillator provides a simple device for fundamental studies of time-delay dynamical systems and can be used as a building block for ultra-wide-band sensor networks.