Regular Article

Dynamics of an inhomogeneously broadened passively mode-locked laser^★

¹ Weierstrass Institute, Mohrenstr. 39, 10117 Berlin, Germany
² Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod, pr. Gagarina 23, Nizhni Novgorod 603950, Russia

^a e-mail: vladimir@wias-berlin.de

Received: 2 November 2018
Received in final form: 31 January 2019
Published online: 22 May 2019

Abstract

We study theoretically the effect of inhomogeneous broadening of the gain and absorption lines on the dynamics of a passively mode-locked laser. Using numerical simulations of travelling wave equations, we demonstrate the formation of an instability of mode-locking regime and suppression of Q-switching in a laser with large inhomogeneous broadening. Moreover, we derive simplified delay-differential equation model for a mode-locked laser with inhomogeneously broadened gain and absorption lines and perform numerical bifurcation analysis of this model.