RELAXATION OSCILLATIONS IN A SELF-MODULATED SOLID-STATE RING LASER

Noise driven relaxation oscillations of a solid-state ring laser under going stable dynamical periodic pulsation are investigated for the fir st time. Formulas for the relaxation oscillation frequencies in the pr esence of frequency nonreciprocity are derived. It is shown that, in t he case of symmetric backscattering, the self-modulation regime is cha racterized by damped relaxation oscillations. The conditions are found for which the relaxation oscillation frequencies are nondegenerate ov er the whole range in which the frequency nonreciprocity can be varied . The dependence of the relaxation oscillation frequencies on paramete rs of the sinusoidally alternating bidirectional ring laser is substan tially different from the corresponding dependence for unidirectional operation.