Effects of unwanted feedback on synchronized chaotic optical communications

The effects of unwanted external optical feedback on synchronized chaotic optical communication systems are studied numerically. We consider an open-loop configuration consisting of a transmitter laser with double external optical feedbacks and a receiver laser with optical injection from the transmitter laser. First, including the effects of unwanted optical feedback, the synchronization performances of both the complete synchronization and the generalized synchronization are examined. Then the encoding and decoding performances of the generalized synchronization and the effects of the introduced feedback are investigated, respectively. Finally, we study the control of the unwanted feedback on the dynamics of the transmitter laser and briefly discuss the system security when the transmitter laser is driven to operate in a steady state or periodic oscillation state by the additional feedback.