Transient Bistability in a Laser Containing a Saturable Absorber

Abstract

The question of the behaviour of the LSA when a control parameter is a slowly varying function of time, has recently been raised [1]. The investigation of the transient behaviour of a LSA is interesting not only in connection with the problem of the response time of optically bistable systems but also because in any real experiment, if one wants to explore a phase diagram, the parameters have to be changed in time. Although the relaxation times of the molecular medium and the cavity response time are of the order of 100μs or smaller, the time constants characterising the transient regime of the LSA may be much longer because of the critical slowing down which appears near the limit points of the hysteresis cycle[2]