Influence of mode locking on the stability of the peak power of giant YAG:Nd3+ laser pulses

An investigation was made of the influence of active mode locking on the stability of generation of giant pulses at different Q-switching frequencies F. In the absence of locking near chaotic operation regions there were two lasing regimes with spectra characterized by very different widths. The change from one regime to another occurred in a random manner. The duration of the existence of a particular regime depended on F and was several orders of magnitude higher than 1/F.