Abstract

An erbium-doped fiber laser is shown to operate as a bistable or even multistable nonlinear device under the influence of harmonic modulation applied to the current of the diode pump laser. Phase- and frequency-locked states (Arnold’s tongues) are directly mapped out through the codimensional-one and codimensional-two bifurcation diagrams in the parameter space of the modulation frequency and amplitude for frequencies lower than the fundamental laser frequency. We demonstrate that generalized bistability results in the overlapping of the Arnold’s tongues for different coexisting attractors. Depending on the modulation frequency, the two different scenarios to chaos, through period doubling and quasi-periodicity, are observed with an increase of the modulation amplitude.

© 2004 Optical Society of America