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Effect of intracavity subharmonic phase modulation on a ND:YAG laser. Master's thesis

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:7335718
A Nd:YAG laser propagating in the TEM sub 00 mode was phase modulated by an intracavity lithium niobate crystal that was driven at a subharmonic frequency equal to one half the frequency difference between the free-running modes. Experimental results showed that the subharmonic frequency caused low amplitude subharmonic modes to be injected by single-pass modulation into the scanning Fabry-Perot interferometer display of the free-running modes, which otherwise remained unperturbed. When a spectrally impure rf drive, primarily composed of the sub-harmonic and twice this frequency, was allowed to phase modulate the laser, mode-locking resulted because of the residual harmonic power in the signal. As phase-state switching randomly occurred, subharmonic modes either appeared or disappeared in the interferometer display of the phase-locked modes. This effect was theoretically shown to be a result of the phase relationship between the subharmonic frequency of the rf drive and the electric field in the cavity, a relationship that changed by pi/2 radians whenever phase-state switching occurred.
Research Organization:
Air Force Inst. of Tech., Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio (USA). School of Engineering
OSTI ID:
7335718
Report Number(s):
AD-A-017185
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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