Laser Optical Feedback Turns 60

As soon as a laser is fired, some of the emitted light is scattered backward and coupled with the cavity modes, causing instability. However, already in March 1962, Kleinman and Kisliuk [1] suggested that controlled back reflection from an external mirror could help the stabilization of the fundamental cavity mode by suppressing the higher-order ones. Soon afterward, King and Steward [2] proposed the exploitation of optical feedback for metrology, and laser self-mixing (LSM) eventually became an established research topic. Sixty years and a few thousand publications later, this Special Issue celebrates some of the most recent achievements in optical feedback interferometry (OFI), as LSM is currently addressed. The Special Issue includes four research articles, each covering one aspect of the multivariate system simply consisting of a laser and a scattering target. These papers relate to modeling new type of lasers, implementing commercial applications, and deepening our understanding of laser dynamics.