NONLINEAR DYNAMICS OF ADDITIVE-PULSE MODE-LOCKED LASERS IN 4 CAVITY TOPOLOGIES

Coupled-cavity mode-locked lasers, useful as they may be, can have a t endency to display dynamic instabilities; the mechanisms for this phen omenon are poorly understood. We show here by analytic means, suppleme nted with numerics, how these instabilities arise from the coupling of nonlinear resonators and how the thresholds for instability depend st rongly on the topology of the laser. Four different topologies are con sidered, the Michelson, the Fabry-Perot, and two further configuration s. The results of this comprehensive theory identify the most stable a nd the most unstable configuration and explain empirical findings of s everal authors.