Benjamin Klein

Mode Locking
As we’ve seen, in an inhomogeneously broadened laser far above threshold,
multiple modes can lase simultaneously at different frequencies.  Each lasing
mode is ampli ed by a different subgroup of atoms, and doesn’t have any
dependence on the other modes; therefore, the phase of each mode relative to the
others is generally random.  In a modelocked laser, we will take steps to ‘lock’ the
phases of all the lasing modes so that they have a de nite relationship to one
another.  The reason that this is desirable will be described below.

For a Fabry-Perot laser with mirror spacing L, the frequency separation between
longitudinal modes in Hz is given by , which is the free spectral range.
Therefore the angular frequency separation between longitudinal modes is
times the free spectral range, and we de ne this quantity as :

We’re going to assign some more symbols here, so we can do the math for a
general case rather than a speci c case.  If we have lasing modes, each with
their own frequency, let’s say is the lowest lasing mode (angular) frequency.
 The angular frequencies of the lasing modes would then be , , ,
and so forth up to .  Then we can write the total electric eld inside
the laser cavity at some xed position (z = 0) as

where is the amplitude of the mode, and is the initial phase of the
mode.  If the amplitudes and the phases  are constant in time, the above
total eld is periodic in time with period , because:
The quantity should be an integer representing the longitudinal mode number
of the lowest-order lasing mode.  Therefore the entire second exponential is 1, and
we have

So the eld is periodic in time if the amplitudes and phases are constant in
time.  For a fairly coherent laser we expect that the phases will be varying
relatively slowly compared to the oscillation frequency; however, they are varying
randomly with respect to one another, which leads to random uctuations of the
total eld and intensity.  For example, below we’ve plotted the individual mode
elds (in various colors) and the total eld (in black) for 10 modes with identical
amplitudes and random initial phases.  You can see that the total eld has
a random-looking time dependence, which will evolve into different random-
looking time dependences as the relative mode phases change over time.

Let’s imagine that instead we could lock all the mode phases to some constant
value. For simplicity we’ll take all the .  If we also have identical mode
amplitudes (which we won’t, in practice, but it’s a reasonable place to start)
then our total eld becomes:

This is a geometric series, which we can evaluate.  After some manipulation it

becomes

which looks like a periodic pulse train.  We’ve plotted it rst for 3 modes using L =
10 cm, which results in a period of = 2/3 ns :

then ve modes:
and nally 10 modes:
The advantage of modelocking, then, is that it produces a regular train of high-
intensity pulses, which are useful for various applications.  Note that the pulse
period is exactly the round-trip time of the laser.  What this suggests is that
there is a single pulse within the laser cavity, which is traveling back and forth
between the mirrors at the speed of light.  A portion of this pulse  leaks out of the
output-coupling mirror on each round trip.  This is diagrammed below.

In order to achieve modelocking in practice, we work backwards from the

knowledge of what a modelocked laser should produce – a periodic pulse train –
and con gure the cavity to encourage the formation of such a pulse train.  In
particular, we can modulate the losses (or the gain) in the cavity in such a way as
to make a pulse train favorable.  For example, suppose that we insert a component
within the laser cavity which leads to increased optical loss (via absorption, or
scattering, or whatever) whenever the pulse ISN’T present.  When the pulse arrives,
the loss decreases.  This could take the form of a shutter which absorbs light
when closed, and passes light when open.  This shutter would have to be operated
at a high frequency, as it must be opened and closed once every round trip time for
the light.

In practice, making such a fast mechanical shutter is challenging.  We may instead
use an acousto-optic modulator, which diffracts light out of the beam when
activated, and can be switched very fast.  Alternatively, we may use a saturable
absorber, which is a device that absorbs less light as the optical intensity
increases.  Another option is to pump the gain medium with another modelocked
laser!  The key is to modulate either the gain or the loss within the cavity at a
frequency equal to the frequency separation between lasing modes.  This
generates sidebands for each mode, which exactly overlap with the neighboring
mode frequencies, thus coupling the modes and locking their phases.

 
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