Abstract

Homogeneously broadened single mode lasers are well known to exhibit self-pulsing instabilities and chaotic dynamics under the combined conditions of large ratio of gain over losses and low cavity quality. In fact, a homogeneously broadened single mode laser in resonance has essentially 3 degrees of freedom only and is realistically described by the Lorenz model, which has served as a prototype model for investigating chaos in continuous dynamical systems. However, the above mentioned conditions for the occurrence of chaos have not yet been realized, experimentally.

© 1983 Optical Society of America