Homoclinic orbits and cycles in the instabilities of a laser with a saturable absorber

Abstract

The phase-space evolution for the instabilities in a ${\mathrm{CO}}_{2}$ laser with an intracavity saturable absorber is investigated experimentally. The different scenarios corresponding to limit cycles, homoclinic orbits and cycles involving two unstable points, and chaotic behavior are investigated. A theoretical analysis of the experimental results is sketched out.