Abstract
We analyse the effect of both distributed and localised losses in a laser cavity on the Risken–Nummedal–Graham–Haken multimode instability. For two-level lasers, distributed losses are found to have a negligible influence on the instability conditions as long as they remain below 10 dB, a value hardly ever exceeded under common experimental conditions. If one keeps raising the distributed loss above that value, finally the uniform-field-limit results are recovered: localised loss becomes less and less important, and in the limit does not enter at all. In contrast, for three-level lasers – in particular for erbium-doped fibre lasers – distributed losses are found to have a profound quantitative influence on the instability threshold.
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In [15] the expressions of d0 and γ∥that correspond to four-level lasers are different to those derived more recently in [20]. The reason for the apparent discrepancy is that the considered relaxation schemes are different in the two cases. For realistic four-level lasers, such as Nd lasers, the appropriate transformation is as given here and derived in [20]
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42.55Ah; 42.65.Sf; 42.60.Mi; 42.55.Wd
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Roldán , E., de Valcárcel , G. & Mitschke , F. Role of field losses on the Risken–Nummedal–Graham–Haken laser instability: application to erbium-doped fibre lasers. Appl Phys B 76, 741–748 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-003-1205-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-003-1205-8