Self-mode-locking of cw solid-state lasers with a nonlinear antiresonance ring

An analysis is made of self-mode-locking of cw solid-state lasers performed by a modulator based on an antiresonance ring containing a bulk element with self-phase-modulation. Such a modulation is capable of effectively discriminating fluctuations of radiation and has a high initial transmission. The characteristics of a self-consistent ultrashort pulse, obtained from an approximate analytic solution of the problem of cw lasing, are investigated as a function of the modulator parameters. The parameters of a system for which an analytic solution matches the regions of effective self-mode-locking are found by numerical modelling of formation of stable ultrashort pulse trains from the noise radiation in an active medium subjected to continuous pumping.