Nonreciprocal measurements in femtosecond ring lasers

Abstract

Sensitive gyroscopic response has been demonstrated with a passively mode-locked ring dye laser. Rapid change in the phase of scattering has been identified as an important mechanism responsible for the extremely low lock-in threshold of this laser gyro. Coupling between counterpropagating pulses has been confirmed to take place only in the overlapping region of the pulses. Intracavity measurements of the electro-optical effect are demonstrated with fields as small as 20 mV/cm.