Abstract

Recently we reported¹ numerical solutions of the full set of Maxwell-Bloch equations for a laser with transverse profile variations, finding examples of multimode pulsations without defects and examples of defect-mediated pulsations that could be periodic or turbulent. The onset of turbulence was illustrated by the loss of spatial correlation -- the decorrelation of intensity fluctuations at separated points - as the number of defects increased. In that work, we also reported the first results of parallel studies using more physical limitations on the transverse profile of the excitation mechanism and using spatially distributed spontaneous emission noise. The transverse profile limitations effectively suppressed the higher order radial modes, thereby enlarging the spatial extent of the coherent structure surrounding each defect. The enlarging of the size of coherent structures around each defect, reaching a significant fraction of the size of the overall patterns, was sufficient to increase their interaction to a global one, causing entrainment of the motion of the defects after long transients, with the final states being periodic motion. We elaborate on these results in the present work.

© 1992 Optical Society of America