The temporal dynamics of an erbium-doped fiber laser shows various interesting modes of behavior. In the stationary regime, a behavior going from a cw working mode to deterministic chaos through different self-pulsed working modes has been observed. In the transient regime, effects such as antiphase phenomena, between two orthogonal states of polarization, can be observed. To describe the dynamics of the fiber laser we have studied a theoretical model based on two coupled lasers coherently pumped. A linear stability analysis is given which demonstrates the existence of a Hopf bifurcation for low values of the pump parameter. Numerical calculation results allow a good description of the experimental results. The value of the newly introduced coherence lifetime parameter is discussed.

• Received 23 November 1993

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.49.3997