Switching a multistable solid-state laser from one stable steady state to another-dynamic stability analysis

The switching of a multistable laser from one stable steady state to the next has been studied using a longitudinally pumped laser with a nonlinear mirror. To achieve switching, use has been made of a second mode that is oscillating at the pump frequency. This pump mode is kept just below its threshold for oscillation. We find through an analysis of the dynamic gain functions of both the laser and pump modes that the steady state of the laser mode is very sensitive to changes in the steady state of the pump mode that are brought about by fluctuations in the pump intensity. It is found that for switching to be possible, the difference in frequency between the pump and laser mode should not be much larger than the linewidth of the laser atomic medium. We conclude that a conventionally pumped multistable and multimode solid-state laser can have one of its modes switched from one of its stable steady states to another such state, of a lower or higher intensity, by longitudinally injecting a pulse of suitable magnitude, frequency, and duration as a perturbation. This can happen provided that one of the other N-1 modes, which are kept below oscillation threshold, has been pushed by such a perturbation to just above threshold for oscillation in order that it couples with the oscillating laser mode. We have estimated the switching time to be less than the laser cavity photon decay time but of the order of the round-trip time in the Fabry-Perot cavity. The analysis also shows that the laser threshold intensity and its stability are not dependent on the difference between the frequencies of the pump and laser modes. However, the threshold is found to be sensitive to changes in the overlap parameter which is defined as a ratio of the beam waists.