Noise dynamics in actively mode-locked lasers

Summary form only. It has recently been proposed that there is an interesting link between the dynamics of an actively mode-locked laser model and "transient gain", a proposed mechanism in fluid turbulence. We show that these results are considerably more general than the model used. And we link these results to the Petermann excess noise parameter. De-synchronisation between the modulator period T/sub M/ and the round trip time T/sub g/ of the laser cavity is shown to readily give rise to very large Petermann factors. The resultant huge excess noise can de-stabilise the laser, leading to a kind of turbulence.