Self-modulation of the average intensity of radiation from an actively mode-locked YAG:Nd3+ laser

Low-frequency self-modulation of the average radiation power, observed in actively mode-locked solid-state lasers, was found to be excited when the glancing angle of a beam incident on an acoustooptic modulator (switch) corresponded to minima of the diffraction characteristic of the modulator. A theoretical model of the mechanism of excitation of such self-modulation is put forward. Synchronization of a sequence of giant pulses can increase the stability of their repetition frequency and reproducibility of the peak power by more than one order of magnitude.