Dynamics of a laser with a reverse saturable absorber

A reverse saturable absorber is basically a classical saturable absorber ex hibiting excited-state absorption. We investigate in this paper the dynamic s of a laser with a reverse saturable absorber. A rate equation formalism i s used to theoretically describe this laser. We first demonstrate, from a l inear stability analysis, that excited-state absorption stabilizes the outp ut intensity of a laser with a saturable absorber. Furthermore, the transie nt dynamics are considered. We show that, depending on the characteristic t ime associated with the reverse saturable absorber, the transient regime ca n depart considerably from the classical relaxation oscillations usually ob served in single-mode class-B lasers. We observe in some cases a large redu ction of the first peaks of the relaxation oscillations.