Title :
Stability of passively Q-switched lasers: a system theoretic approach
Author :
Shahruz, Shahram M.
Author_Institution :
Berkeley Eng. Res. Inst., CA, USA
Abstract :
The rate equations of passively Q-switched lasers are considered. These equations represent the dynamics of the photon number in the laser cavity, the population inversion of the laser, and the ground-state population of the saturable absorber, when excited by an input (pumping rate). In this paper, it is shown that for bounded inputs the laser output is bounded. Furthermore, it is shown that when the input is switched off, the laser output converges to zero asymptotically. These stability results show that passively Q-switched lasers can operate safely
Keywords :
Q-switching; asymptotic stability; laser stability; optical saturable absorption; photon counting; population inversion; system theory; asymptotic convergence; ground-state population; laser cavity; passively Q-switched laser stability; photon number dynamics; population inversion; rate equations; saturable absorber; system theoretic approach; Equations; Laser beam cutting; Laser excitation; Laser feedback; Laser radar; Laser stability; Laser theory; Optical pulse generation; Pump lasers; Radar applications;
Conference_Titel :
Decision and Control, 1997., Proceedings of the 36th IEEE Conference on
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-4187-2
DOI :
10.1109/CDC.1997.649496
