Phase-noise-driven instability in a single-mode microchip Nd:YVO/sub 4/ laser with feedback

We report the instability behaviors of a single-mode microchip solid-state laser subjected to external feedback. Two kinds of instabilities, random chaotic burst generations and random sinusoidal burst generations, were observed experimentally in an LD-pumped microchip Nd:YVO/sub 4/ single-mode solid-state laser with fiber feedback. These results are totally different form those observed in laser diodes with delay feedback systems, which have been widely studied in the last decades. The main features were reproduced numerically by utilizing the Lang-Kobayashi equations with phase noise, indicating phase-noise-driven dynamic instabilities.