Observation of transverse patterns in an isotropic microchip laser

Abstract

An isotropic microchip laser is used to study the characteristics of high-order wave functions in a two-dimensional (2D) quantum harmonic oscillator based on the identical functional forms. With a doughnut pump profile, the spontaneous transverse modes are found to, generally, be elliptic and hyperbolic transverse modes. Theoretical analyses reveal that the elliptic transverse modes are analogous to the coherent states of a 2D harmonic oscillator; the formation of hyperbolic transverse modes is a spontaneous mode locking between two identical Hermite-Gaussian modes.