Cavity solitons in semiconductor microresonators: modeling aspects and role of thermal carrier-lattice dynamics

We study optical pattern formation and cavity solitons in semiconductor microcavities. We adopt a microscopic model that describes the field, the carrier and the temperature dynamics in the quasi-equilibrium regime, within the free-carrier approximation. A detailed study of the instabilities affecting the homogeneous stationary state of the output field is performed. In this way we can address the numerical research of pattern and cavity solitons.