Kerr lens effects on transverse mode stability and active versus passive modelocking in solid state lasers

Summary form only given. The effects of the nonlinear refractive index as a discriminant between the lowest order transverse mode stability in the passively mode locked and cw operating modes of tunable, solid state laser crystals, have received much recent attention. This attention has focused primarily on the intensity dependent focal power in the laser crystal due to the (mostly) nonresonant refractive index and the peak intensity of the oscillating resonator mode. In this report we extend these studies to include resonant and nonresonant refractive index effects due to a synchronous pump laser, and to examine the possibility that the magnitudes, signs, and time dependences of the pump and oscillating wavelength effects could be manipulated to discriminate between active versus passive modelocking of the tunable laser output, as well as between cw and passive modelocked operation