Abstract

The direct comparison between numerical and experimental results on the chaotic behavior of laser systems has been limited because the detection mechanisms usually allow only one or, at most, two aspects of their dynamical behavior to be observed simultaneously. Using a digital oscilloscope, we are able to observe simultaneously the temporal and spectral behavior as well as the corresponding phase plot of the output from a xenon laser, which is detected by a fast InAs detector. As the excitation current of the laser is increased, the laser exhibits a period-doubling route to chaos. Casperson's standing-wave model assumes an inhomogeneous broadening due to Doppler effect, includes the velocity-changing collisions, and uses the slowly-varying amplitude approximation. The model is described in Ref. 1. For numerical parameters consistent with the xenon properties and the experimental set-up, data sets of real and imaginary field amplitudes are generated for different values of excitation. From these, the intensity as a function of time, the power spectrum, and phase plot are calculated. The results show good qualitative agreement with the experimental results.

© 1990 Optical Society of America