Spatio-temporal dynamics of a weakly multimode CO2 laser

D. Hennequin, C. Lepers, E. Louvergneaux, D. Dangoisse, P. Glorieux

Opt. Commun. 93 318-322 (1992)

The behavior of a slightly asymmetric weakly multimode CO2 laser is studied experimentally and compared with that of perfectly cylindrically symmetrical lasers. It is found that in most cases, the system symmetry breaking destroys the vortices, although it appears that for a very small loss of symmetry, the behavior of the laser remains symmetrical.