Periodic and chaotic dynamics in a passively Q-switched Nd:GdVO4 laser with azimuthal polarization

A period-doubling route to chaos was observed in a passively Q-switched Nd:GdVO4 laser beam with azimuthal polarization. At a period of two, the peak intensities gradually varied with the azimuthal angle. When the pump power was increased, the chaotic behavior was spatiotemporal, but the polarization was still azimuthal. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of spatiotemporal chaos under a stationary spatial distribution of the polarization.