General phase-diagram of multimodal ordered and disordered lasers in closed and open cavities

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive mean-field theory for multimodal laser cavities that accounts for disorder and non-linearity, revealing four distinct operational regimes in different cavity configurations.

Contribution

It introduces a unified theoretical framework that describes the phase behavior of multimodal lasers with varying disorder and openness, including phase diagrams and regime predictions.

Findings

Identifies four distinct laser regimes: continuous wave, mode-locking, random laser, and phase locking.

Predicts the influence of disorder and non-linearity on laser operation modes.

Provides phase diagrams illustrating transitions between regimes.

Abstract

We present a unified approach to the theory of multimodal laser cavities including a variable amount of structural disorder. A general mean-field theory is studied for waves in media with variable non-linearity and randomness. Phase diagrams are reported in terms of optical power, degree of disorder and degree of non-linearity, tuning between closed and open cavity scenario's. In the thermodynamic limit of infinitely many modes the theory predicts four distinct regimes: a continuous wave behavior for low power, a standard mode-locking laser regime for high power and weak disorder, a random laser for high pumped power and large disorder and an intermediate regime of phase locking occurring in presence of disorder below the lasing threshold.