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Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Frequency tristability of single-mode, standing-wave gas lasers containing a saturable absorber

John C. Englund

Published May 1, 1988• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The structure of the Lamb dip may permit a standing-wave gas laser containing a saturable absorber (LSA) to exhibit frequency tristability while oscillating in a single spatial mode. This is concluded from the steady-state and stability analyses of a plane-wave gas-laser model in which the atomic populations are taken as homogeneous. Conditions for this behavior are investigated, and it is concluded that very high pump excitations are needed, which is in contrast to previously reported predictions of frequency multistability for LSA’s containing homogeneously broadened media.

DOI
10.1364/josab.5.001083

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Physical Review A•Apr 1, 1991•9 citations
The structure of the Lamb dip may permit a standing-wave gas laser containing a saturable absorber (LSA) to exhibit frequency tristability while oscillating in a single spatial mode. This is concluded from the steady-state and stability analyses of a plane-wave gas-laser model in which the atomic populations are taken as homogeneous. Conditions for this behavior are investigated, and it is concluded that very high pump excitations are needed, which is in contrast to previously reported predictions of frequency multistability for LSA’s containing homogeneously broadened media.
When a tuned standing-wave gas laser operates on-resonance, neighboring frequencies experience gain in accordance with the Lamb dip. Bennett1 showed that it is possible for certain of these frequencies also to satisfy the phase-matching condition required by the dispersion relation. In such cases, gas lasers possess three possible steady states—one on-resonance state and two frequency-pushed ones. Bennett suggested that this effect could give rise to bistability and hysteresis in the frequency vs detuning characteristics.
The optical bistability (OB) behavior of single-mode Fabry- Perot lasers containing saturable absorber (LSA) is presented on the basis of the rate equations with allowance for spontaneous emission and spatial hole-burning. Special attention is paid to the case of dominant inhomogeneous broadening in both Lorentzian and Gaussian models. The OB occurrence conditions are clearly displayed in phase diagrams. The influence of the main LSA parameters on OB characteristics as well as on OB curves' stability are investigated in detail. Some practical suggestions for optimizing the bistable operation in LSA are also given.
This paper discusses the case of a Doppler-broadened gas laser with a saturable intracavity absorber gas. The semiclassical equations governing the field intensities and the atomic density-matrix elements are set up. The latter are written as Fourier series, the components of which are shown to obey coupled difference equations. In this paper the exact steady-state solution in single-mode operation is obtained. The lowest approximation (rate-equation approximation) is used to compute detailed characteristics of the system. In particular, the influence of the pumping rates in the two cells are investigated and displayed in the figures. The regions of bistable operation are determined and conditions for the occurrence of an inverted Lamb dip are given. The effect of a slow modulation of the pumping rates is discussed. The range of validity of the lowest approximation is investigated both analytically and numerically. Finally, there is a brief discussion of the influence of pressure on the parameters of the theory.
In a laser with a saturable absorber (LSA), two spatially separated cells are placed in the laser cavity as shown in Figure 8.1. The roles of the two cells are quite different: one of them is pumped so that the atoms have a positive population inversion (active or amplifying medium); the other one is left with a negative population inversion (passive or absorbing medium). As these two media are in general different, they saturate at different power levels. The most interesting case corresponds to the situation where the absorber saturates more easily than the active medium, introducing nonlinear losses inside the cavity. This new nonlinearity is responsible for two phenomena. An LSA may exhibit optical bistability, i.e. two distinct stable steady states may coexist for a range of values of a parameter. It may also produce pulsating intensity oscillations which have been called “passive Q-switching” (PQS) in contrast to “active Q-switching” experiments such as the “gain switching” experiments discussed in Section 1.3.2. The interest in LSAs varied very much over time, with peaks in the late 1960s for their large intensity pulses, in the mid 1980s for their chaotic outputs, and in the late 1990s for the design of compact microlasers. Historically, physicists trying to explain the irregular intensity pulses delivered by the ruby laser suspected the possible destabilizing role of a saturable absorber. Shimoda proposed that the nonlinear losses generated by a saturable absorber could explain this phenomenon.
The resonance condition is used to describe theoretically the three main kinds of standing waves with E\ensuremath{\perp}B (linear) and E?B (helicoidal and circular polarizations) that can be produced by the same laser and their nonlinear interaction with an atomic medium. It is shown that the saturation behavior of a single-mode gas laser is drastically modified by the nature of the operating standing wave. The predictions are checked experimentally with a laser from which each kind of standing wave can be generated with the same losses. The anisotropic structure of the saturation and in particular of the Lamb dip is isolated in each case. Very good agreement is observed between experiments and theory.