Generation of cnoidal waves by a laser system with a controllable saturable absorber

We demonstrate the cnoidal wave formation in a two-laser system with a saturable absorber in the cavity of one of the lasers. Another laser is used to activate the saturable absorber in order to control the pulse shape, width, intensity and frequency. Using the three-level laser model based on the Statz--De Mars equations, we show that for any value of the saturable absorber parameter there exists a certain modulation frequency for which the pulse shape is very close to a soliton shape with less than 5% error at the pulse base. Such a device may be prominent for optical communication and laser engineering applications.