FIELD SOLUTIONS FOR BIDIRECTIONAL HIGH-GAIN LASER-AMPLIFIERS AND OSCILLATORS

General analytical solutions are obtained for the amplitude, phase, an d intensity of the electromagnetic waves in bidirectional homogeneousl y broadened high-gain laser amplifiers and oscillators. These solution s are important as increasingly high-gain lasers are being employed in practical systems. Expressions are derived relating the output power to the input, including the effects of arbitrary mirror reflectivities and frequency detunings from the line center. For negligible reflecti vities, these regenerative amplifier results reduce to earlier express ions for single-pass high-gain amplifiers. Multivalued outputs also oc cur, and in the limit of low gain per pass the results are consistent with earlier studies of single-frequency laser oscillators. (C) 1998 A merican Institute of Physics.