Observation of self-pulsing in singly resonant optical second-harmonic generation with competing nonlinearities

Abstract

We predict and experimentally observe temporal self-pulsing in singly resonant intracavity second-harmonic generation under conditions of simultaneous parametric oscillation. The threshold for self-pulsing as a function of cavity tuning and phase mismatch are found from analysis of a three-component mean-field model. Analytical mean-field calculations of the self-pulsing frequency as well as numerical simulations including the effects of a time-dependent pump pulse agree with the experimentally observed frequencies.