Dynamic Gain Profiling and Lateral Saturation Effects in Centrally Tuned Inhomogeneously Broadened Lasers Operating Under Unstable Conditions

This paper aims at demonstrating that the dynamic gain contour of an inhomogeneously broadened laser tuned to line center undergoes a lateral saturation effect in its unstable regime of operation. Such an effect is shown to be contained in the numerical solutions of the integro-differential Maxwell-Bloch equations that describe the system. After delimiting the domain of applicability of the usual small-sideband approach in describing dynamic gain profiling, we apply a strong harmonic-expansion method to these same equations to obtain an analytical expression that shows an excellent fit with the results of the numerical simulations.