Four-wave mixing and generation of short pulses in multimode class B laser amplifiers

Abstract

The linear and nonlinear amplification features of an optical signal by a multimode class B laser have been discussed. The four-wave mixing process between the cavity central mode and the amplified input signal produces a sequence of satellite lines. It is demonstrated that short pulses can be formed by phase beating the satellite lines. In the linear regime, the laser amplifier acts like a three-mode free-running laser where the oscillations of two right and left adjacent modes are substituted by those of the amplified input signal and its image satellite line. In the nonlinear regime, two more symmetrical adjacent satellite lines are first added to the cavity electric field components and then the frequency of the cavity central mode is shifted towards the image satellite lines. At the same time, the number of central-mode photons is gradually decreased by raising the input signal strength. The central-mode photons are ultimately reduced to zero, where an injection-locking phenomenon takes place. Finally, we derive a heuristic conservation relation between the input energies to the laser by sum of the pumping and injected signals, and those distributed between the signal and image satellite lines and spontaneous emission radiation.