Quantitative Verification of Ab Initio Self-consistent Laser Theory

TL;DR

This paper extends and validates an ab initio laser theory that accurately predicts stationary lasing properties in multimode regimes, showing it outperforms traditional approximations and aligns well with detailed simulations.

Contribution

The paper generalizes the self-consistent laser theory to improve quantitative accuracy and removes the slowly-varying envelope approximation for better agreement with simulations.

Findings

Excellent quantitative agreement with Maxwell-Bloch simulations

Third order approximation fails significantly

Theory predicts all stationary lasing properties from simple inputs

Abstract

We generalize and test the recent "ab initio" self-consistent (AISC) time-independent semiclassical laser theory. This self-consistent formalism generates all the stationary lasing properties in the multimode regime (frequencies, thresholds, internal and external fields, output power and emission pattern) from simple inputs: the dielectric function of the passive cavity, the atomic transition frequency, and the transverse relaxation time of the lasing transition. We find that the theory gives excellent quantitative agreement with full time-dependent simulations of the Maxwell-Bloch equations after it has been generalized to drop the slowly-varying envelope approximation. The theory is infinite order in the non-linear hole-burning interaction; the widely used third order approximation is shown to fail badly.