Generation of multiple low-correlation chaos signals using asymmetric coupling semiconductor lasers networks

•Asymmetrically coupled semiconductor lasers networks can generate multiple chaos signals.•Delta-like autocorrelation functions are obtained for each channel chaotic signals.•Average cross correlations are below 0.1 between multiple chaos signals.•Effective bandwidth over 20 GHz; good rubustness. We propose and numerically demonstrate a novel multiple delta-like autocorrelation chaos generation scheme in virtue of asymmetrically-coupled semiconductor lasers (ACSLs) networks. The properties of auto-correlation function (ACF), cross correlation, and effective bandwidth of the generated multiple chaos signals are systematically investigated in ACSLs networks with different topology and network sizes. The results show that not only delta-like ACF traces are obtained but also low cross correlations are observed in the chaotic signals outputted by ACSLs networks. Besides, the average effective bandwidth of generated multi-channel chaos can be greater than 20 GHz over a wide dynamic operation range. Moreover, the delta-like ACF, low correlation and wideband properties of multiple chaotic signals are robust to parameter mismatches between SLs. This work realizes wideband multi-channel chaos generation that simultaneously achieves delta-like ACF and low correlation, and is valuable for the applications in high-speed random bit generator, accurate multi-target, multi-angle radar detection, and ultrafast photonic decision making.