Interpretation of relaxation oscillations of semiconductor lasers in terms of the dynamic Stark effect

Experiments using intracavity nearly degenerate four-wave mixing in GaAlAs semiconductor laser oscillators and resonant-type amplifiers suggest that the resonance-relaxation process can be simply interpreted in terms of the dynamic Stark effect for a two-level system. This new interpretation is confirmed by a theoretical development demonstrating that lasers and resonant-type amplifiers can actually be represented well by an equivalent two-level system that takes into account both the semiconductor medium and cavity constants. Such an analysis can be useful for the study of higher-order instabilities.