Acousto-optically induced unidirectional operation of a ring laser a feedback mechanism

Abstract

A second mechanism for acousto-optically induced unidirectional operation of a ring laser has been identified and demonstrated experimentally. The mechanism involves feeding back the diffracted wave thus restoring to its original frequency and direction via a second diffraction from the travelling-wave acousto-optic modulator. Since the feedback resonance condition is different for the two counter-propagating waves of the ring laser they experience a loss difference which results in unidirectional operation via this method a very large loss difference can be achieved with negligible insertion loss.

Optics Communications (1992) Vol.91(56) pp.365-370

doi: 10.1016/0030-4018(92)90361-T

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