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Physical Review Letters

Self-pulsing in intrinsic optical bistability with two-level molecules

Bernard Ségard, B. Macke

Published Feb 1, 1988• 32 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Well-developed sine-wave self-pulsing has been observed in the beam transmitted by a passive cavity containing a molecular gas, subjected to a cw incident beam. The free spectral range of cavity is comparable to the Rabi frequency inside the cavity and much larger than the relaxation rate. The self-pulsing is attributed to the multimode instability predicted by Bonifacio and Lugiato in 1978 but not yet observed.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.60.412

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Physical Review Letters•Dec 31, 1984•69 citations
Well-developed sine-wave self-pulsing has been observed in the beam transmitted by a passive cavity containing a molecular gas, subjected to a cw incident beam. The free spectral range of cavity is comparable to the Rabi frequency inside the cavity and much larger than the relaxation rate. The self-pulsing is attributed to the multimode instability predicted by Bonifacio and Lugiato in 1978 but not yet observed.
We have recently observed a sinewave self-pulsing in the beam transmitted by a passive cavity containing 2-level molecules, driven by a continuous wave. In this experiment made at a wavelength λ ≅ 3.5 mm, the intracavity Rabi frequency is comparable to the free spectral range ( 830 kHz ) of the very long cavity used (l =182 m) {1} and much larger than the collisional linewidth (≅ 25 kHz) .The medium is then strongly saturated by the driving field ( saturation parameter > 1000) so that its absorption , heavy in the linear regime (αl > 100), is in fact quite moderate. We claim that the self-pulsing observed in these conditions is the first experimental evidence of the multimode instability, predicted a long time ago by Bonifacio and Lugiato {2} but not yet observed. This instability is the multimode counterpart of the single mode instability, recently observed by Orozco et al {3}.
We compare theoretical predictions and experimental data for the multimode instability of optical bistability, which arises from the coherent dynamics of a system of two-level molecules contained in an optical cavity and driven by an external stationary laser field. Considerable insight into this phenomenon is provided by two ``rules of thumb'' that govern the behavior of the self-pulsing frequency, and establish its relation with the Rabi frequency of the intracavity field. We describe in detail the experimental apparatus and the main features of the experimental findings. The theoretical results are based on the Maxwell-Bloch equations for a ring cavity in the plane-wave approximation. Despite the crudeness of this model, the numerical data display a satisfactory qualitative agreement with the experimental results. Additional period-doubling and chaotic phenomena, predicted by the theory and not observed in the experiment, are presumably washed out by the longitudinal and radial variation of the electric field in the cavity.
The subject of spontaneous pulsations in Optical Bistability has stimulated considerable interest following its prediction by Bonifacio, and Lugiato1 in the framework of the plane-wave, ring cavity model and the realization by McCall2 of an electro-optical converter of cw coherent light into pulsed radiation. In a subsequent important development Ikeda3 showed that, in the dispersive case, the Bonifacio-Lugiato instability leads to chaotic behavior (optical turbulence). This was later observed in a hybrid device by Gibbs, et al4.
We report the observation of an instability in a bistable optical system with a homogeneously broadened two-level medium involving the onset of the cavity side mode that is two modes away from the source frequency and three modes away from the molecular resonance frequency. These measurements extend the range of a recent report [Phys. Rev. A 39, 703 (1989)] of observations of the multimode instability in optical bistability predicted by Lugiato and Bonifacio [Lett. Nuovo Cimento 21, 505 (1978); 21, 510 (1978)], with the key difference being that the experimental observations in the previous report were limited to instabilities of the side mode adjacent to the source frequency.