Abstract

A number of recent experimental studies have demonstrated the propagation of soliton-like pulses in passively mode-locked ring dye and Ti-sapphire lasers. Pulses bearing a striking similarity to the fundamental soliton and pulses that look remarkably similar to higher-order solitons have been observed in these lasers. While analytic work has established that the fundamental soliton is possible in these lasers, the nature of the possible higher-order solitons remains unresolved. In particular, a theoretical model of higher order solitons in ring lasers does not yet exist. In this paper we show that higher-order solitons are possible in ring lasers by deriving a modified nonlinear Schroedinger equation (NLSE) based on the discrete-element structure of the ring laser, and discuss the implications of this derivation for soliton propagation in these lasers.

© 1991 Optical Society of America