Asymmetric control characteristics of dye BDN on the two travelling waves in a ring YAG laser

It is discovered experimentally that, when placing a plate of dye BDN in a ring YAG laser cavity, the dye shows asymmetric control actions on the clockwise and counter-clockwise travelling waves. Unidirectional dye Q-switched operation is realized in a ring cavity based on this property without the use of Faraday rotator, polarizer and half-wave plate. A simplified theoretical analysis of this phenomenon is presented.