Summary: Continuous-wave versus pulse regime
in a passively mode-locked
laser with a fast saturable absorber
J. M. Soto-Crespo
Instituto de O´ ptica, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cie`ntifica`s, Serrano 121, 28006 Madrid, Spain
N. Akhmediev
Optical Sciences Centre, Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, Institute of Advanced Studies,
Australian National University, Australian Capital Territory 0200, Australia
G. Town
School of Electrical and Information Engineering (J03), University of Sydney, New South Wales, 2006, Australia
(Received February 27, 2001; revised manuscript received August 15, 2001)
The phenomenon of modulation instability of continuous-wave (cw) solutions of the cubic­quintic complex
Ginzburg­Landau equation is studied. It is shown that low-amplitude cw solutions are always unstable.
For higher-amplitude cw solutions, there are regions of stability and regions where the cw solutions are modu-
lationally unstable. It is found that there is an indirect relation between the stability of the soliton solutions
and the modulation instability of the higher-amplitude cw solutions. However, there is no one-to-one corre-
spondence between the two. We show that the evolution of modulationally unstable cw's depends on the sys-
tem parameters. © 2002 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: 190.5530, 190.5940, 140.3510, 320.5540.
1. INTRODUCTION

Source: Akhmediev, Nail - Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, Australian National University
Australian National University, Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, Optical Sciences Group

Collections: Engineering; Physics