Addressing and Manipulation of Localized Structures in Passively Mode-Locked Semiconductor Lasers

Temporal Localized Structures are short pulses travelling back and forth in a nonlinear cavity which can be individually addressed and manipulated. Hence, they can be used as fundamental information bits, thus enabling data buffering and processing. They can also be used for generating arbitrary patterns of picosecond laser pulses at arbitrary low rate. In this contribution we review the results obtained in Vertical Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers coupled to an external Saturable Absorber Mirror.