Picosecond pulsed diode ring-laser gyroscope.

We have demonstrated a novel solid-state ring-laser gyroscope, which utilizes as the gain media a pair of semiconductor diodes in an external ring cavity. The use of homogeneously broadened gain media is made possible by actively mode locking the laser. We observe no evidence of frequency locking between the counterpropagating optical pulse trains generated in the cavity to within the limit of our experimental resolution.