Explanation and prediction of curious experimental phenomena in lasers and nonlinear optics

Experimental data often contains curious and unexplained results. In the course of experimental investigations of Raman shifting and the Co:MgF₂ laser, results were obtained which would not have been expected from the typical theoretical picture. In the case of Raman shifting, the forward Stokes conversion was found to depend upon the pump bandwidth. Numerical modeling suggests that coupling between the Stokes directions may be the root cause of the phenomena. In the case of the Co:MgF₂ laser, the laser output was observed to have large amounts of spectral structure. This amount of structure should not be expected in a room temperature vibronically broadened laser. Further experiments point to adsorbed water vapor for the cause of the structure, and this hypothesis is supported by a numerical model. Additionally, a unique method for treating the effects of arbitrary gain distribution on the propagation of the lowest order laser cavity mode is expanded to cover new distributions and new coordinate systems. An extension to parametric gains is also made. The extensions are then used to predict unstable regions in real laser cavities. These instabilities are observed in diffraction calculations. Guidelines for observing this intriguing result are presented.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Graduate College

Grantor dc:publisher

The University of Arizona.

Year dc:date.issued

1999

Author dc:creator

• Watson, Jason Paul, 1971-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Peyghambarian, Nasser

• Physics, Optics.

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10150/282875

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.arizona.edu:10150/282875