Some aspects of the kinetics of emission of solid-state sweep lasers

Rate equations are used in a analytic investigation of the process of formation of the spectrum of a single spike emitted by a solid-state sweep laser. A boundary separating basically different fast and slow sweep regions is established in the plane of the principal parameters of a sweep laser (these parameters are the sweep rate, pump level, and selectivity of a dispersive resonator). The spectral and kinetic characteristics of the laser emission are analyzed as a function of the sweep rate. The concept of the sweep laser threshold is refined. It is shown that the theoretical conclusions are in good agreement with the experimental results obtained for a neodymium-glass sweep laser.