Amplitude Instability in Coupled Nd:YVO4Microchip Lasers

A system of two coupled Nd:YVO4 microchip lasers exhibits a phaselocking instability as coupling strength or mutual detuning are varied across the phase-lockingthresholds. The compact semi-monolithic resonator setup enables investigations in a regime ofvery small detuning. Time-resolved measurements reveal the correlation between the onset ofintensity pulsations and phase locking.