Abstract

Dye lasers oscillate in a multitude of modes, weakly coupled by the inversion, unless their resonators contain frequency selective loss in order to suppress most of the modes. Spontaneous emission triggers the onset of the oscillation in these modes, and the subsequent dynamics determined by quantum fluctuations is stochastic.^[1] However, other coupling mechanisms, which include pump and loss modulation, stimulated Brillouin scattering, four-wave mixing, and spatial hole burning both in the gain medium or in an absorber, modify the dynamics.^[2]

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