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Title: Experimental verification of soliton mode locking using only a slow saturable absorber

Journal Article · · Optics Letters
; ; ; ;  [1]
  1. Ultrafast Laser Physics, Institute of Quantum Electronics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Hoenggerberg---HPT, CH-8093 Zuerich (Switzerland)

We demonstrate experimentally that solid-state lasers with strong solitonlike pulse shaping can be mode locked by a slow saturable absorber only, i.e., the response time is much slower than the width of the soliton. A Ti:sapphire laser mode locked by a low-temperature-grown GaAs absorber with 10-ps recovery time generates pulses as short as 300 fs without the need for Kerr-lens mode locking and critical cavity alignment. An extrapolation of this result would predict that an {approx}100-fs recovery time of a semiconductor absorber could support pulses into the 10-fs regime. {copyright} 1995 Optical Society of America

Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
OSTI ID:
165729
Journal Information:
Optics Letters, Vol. 20, Issue 18; Other Information: PBD: 15 Sep 1995
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English