Abstract

We find that structures formed in lasers emitting in large Fresnel number resonators exhibit similarities with many fields of physics and in particular to fluids, especially in the behaviour of the optical vortices. As early as 1969 [1] has it been noticed that there is a close relation of lasers and superfluids. Since single mode lasers were at the center of attention at that time, this relation was not investigated further. Phenomena like optical vortices were not yet known. In the present investigations of transverse patterns in non linear optics, however, these analogies prove very fruitful.

© 1996 Optical Society of America