Dynamics of injection lasers

The generation of picosecond pulses by means of semiconductor lasers is reviewed, citing results of an investigation of the characteristics in spike and bistable regimes. Self-synchroni- zation of axial modes in a laser with an external mirror is also discussed. OTH theoretical and experimental investigations of the dynamics of different types of lasers were carried out after the spike structure in ruby laser radiation was observed (l). The study of dynamic processes leads to a number of effective methods for controlling the laser output. Various methods of &-switched modula- tion, lasers with nonlinear amplifiers for obtaining the short powerful light pulses, and lasers based on space and time synchronization of modes to obtain ultrashort pulses or single-mode outputs were developed; also proposed were methods of spike synchronization, etc. The studies included the kinetic processes in solid-state and gas lasers, the spike structure of giant pulses, and so on. Despite the great number of theoretical and experi- mental works there does not exist now a general theory describing the dynamic processes in lasers. This seems to