Transient polarization dynamics in a CO2 laser

Abstract We study experimentally and theoretically the polarization alternation during the switch-on transient of a quasi-isotropic CO 2 laser emitting on the fundamental mode. The observed transient dynamics is well reproduced by means of a model which provides a quantitative discrimination between the intrinsic asymmetry due to the kinetic coupling of molecules with different angular momenta, and the extrinsic anisotropies, due to a tilted intracavity window. Furthermore, the experiment provides a numerical assignment for the decay rate of the coherence term for a CO 2 laser.