Self-Q-switching of a loop laser cavity with a self-pumped four-wave phase-conjugate mirror in an active laser medium

Abstract

Self-Q-switching of a loop laser cavity with a self-pumped four-wave phase-conjugate mirror in an active laser medium with the use of a Faraday isolator or a passive Q-switch is studied theoretically. It is found that, in contrast to passive Q-switching of an ordinary cavity, a passive Q-switch in a loop phase-conjugate cavity serves as an auxiliary unit that increases the self-Q-switching efficiency by gain gratings in the active laser medium, since it decreases the difference in the intensities of waves that write a phase-conjugate mirror in the active medium, which is similar to the use of a Faraday isolator. However, the passive Q-switch operates alternating the highly efficient writing of a phase-conjugate mirror in the closed state with the highly efficient generation of a giant laser pulse in the open state, which stabilizes the period of repetitive laser pulses.