Single- and Multimode Instabilities in Lasers

Abstract

Instabilities play an important role in a large number of fields for example in hydrodynamics, plasma physics, semiconductor physics, ecology and economy. Also in lasers can a great variety of instabilities be found. Compared to hydrodynamics and plasma physics the nonlinear laser equations are, at least for simple ring-laser models, rather simple. Therefore the investigation of the instabilities in lasers is easier to carry out than in most other fields. The main simplification seems to be that for our ring-laser model only one space coordinate needs to be taken into account, whereas for the instabilities in hydrodynamics at least two space coordinates are usually to be considered.