Repetitive passive Q-switching and bistability in lasers with saturable absorbers

We report detailed experimental data on the passive Q-switching operation in a CO₂ laser with CH₃I saturable absorber, and on the transient behaviour in the near-Q-switching situation. Under suitable operating conditions, we found bistability in the output power. In some cases, we observed the simultaneous presence of bistability and passive Q-switching. The theoretical part of the paper starts from the four-level model of laser with saturable absorber, as formulated by other authors. By adiabatically eliminating the variables of the resonant levels, we reduce the problem to a set of three differential equations, from which we derive explicit analytical conditions for the rise of passive Q-switching. These conditions turn out to be in good qualitative and partially quantitative agreement with our experimental findings as well as with other experimental data previously obtained by other authors. Finally we classify the possible combinations of passive Q-switching and bistability that one can find in this type of experiments.