Laser Saturable Resonators and Criteria for Their Bistable Operation
Abstract
The theory for steady state operation of a saturable absorber was developed starting with the treatment of a Fabry-Perot interferometer with nonsaturable loss. Resonance characteristics of the interferometer were obtained in terms of mirror reflectivity and cavity loss. With this result it was then possible to replace the unsaturable loss with a saturable loss. In order to do this is was necessary to first develop models for the saturable absorbers used. A model with excited state absorption previously developed by Huff and DeShazer was extended to include both excited singlet and triplet level absorption. A second model, which was applicable to the semiconductor saturable absorber, was also developed. With a mathematical expression for the saturable absorber, it was possible to solve the saturable resonator problem. With this solution a set of criteria were established for operation of the saturable resonator in a bistable regime.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1972
- Accession Number
- AD0746736
Entities
People
- Joseph W. Austin
Organizations
- University of Southern California