Absolute instabilities in lasers with host-induced nonlinearities and dispersion

Author

van Tartwijk, Guido H M ; Agrawal, Govind P.

Author_Institution

Inst. of Opt., Rochester Univ., NY, USA

Volume

34

Issue

10

fYear

1998

fDate

10/1/1998 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1854

Lastpage

1860

Abstract

We analyze the occurrence of absolute instabilities in lasers that contain a dispersive host material with third-order nonlinearities. Starting from the Maxwell-Bloch equations, we derive general multimode equations to distinguish between convective and absolute instabilities. We find that both self-phase modulation and intensity-dependent absorption can dramatically affect the absolute stability of such lasers. In particular, the self-pulsing threshold (the so-called second laser threshold) can occur at few times the first laser threshold even in good-cavity lasers for which no self-pulsing occurs in the absence of intensity-dependent absorption

Keywords

fibre lasers; laser beams; laser cavity resonators; laser modes; laser stability; laser theory; nonlinear optics; optical chaos; optical modulation; phase modulation; ring lasers; Maxwell-Bloch equations; absolute instabilities; convective instabilities; dispersion; dispersive host material; good-cavity lasers; host-induced nonlinearities; intensity-dependent absorption; laser threshold; lasers; multimode equations; second laser threshold; self-phase modulation; self-pulsing; self-pulsing threshold; third-order nonlinearities; Fiber lasers; Fiber nonlinear optics; Laser mode locking; Laser stability; Nonlinear equations; Nonlinear optics; Optical fibers; Optical pumping; Power lasers; Pump lasers;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/3.720218

Filename

720218