Pulsing behavior of a three-level laser with saturable absorber

Author

Marcuse, D.

Author_Institution

AT&T Bell Lab., Holmdel, NJ, USA

Volume

29

Issue

8

fYear

1993

fDate

8/1/1993 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

2390

Lastpage

2396

Abstract

A numerical study of a three-level laser model that includes a saturable absorber is presented. The theory models the laser as a lumped element. This assumption is valid as long as the laser pulses are much longer than the cavity. The model is intended to be somewhat representative of an erbium-doped fiber laser without trying to mimic the operating parameters of such a laser too closely. As expected, the presence of the saturable absorber causes the laser to be unstable under certain operating conditions. The question of stability is explored by examining small perturbations of the steady-state solutions of the rate equations. It is found that the predictions of this stability analysis are in excellent agreement with the behavior of the solutions of the full time-dependent rate equations. It is also found that under certain conditions the laser may pass from pulsed to stable operation simply by raising the pump power

Keywords

erbium; fibre lasers; laser theory; optical pumping; optical saturable absorption; stability; EDFA; Er-doped fibre laser; full time-dependent rate equations; laser cavity; laser pulses; lumped element; numerical study; operating conditions; operating parameters; pump power; rate equations; saturable absorber; small perturbations; stability analysis; steady-state solutions; three-level laser; unstable; Equations; Erbium-doped fiber lasers; Laser modes; Laser stability; Laser theory; Optical fiber theory; Optical pulses; Power lasers; Stability analysis; Steady-state;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/3.245571

Filename

245571