Saturable Bragg reflector mode-locking of Cr/sup 4+/:YAG laser pumped by a diode-pumped Nd:YVO/sub 4/ laser

Author

Collins, B.C. ; Stark, J.B. ; Tsuda, S. ; Knox, Wayne H. ; Cunningham, John E. ; Jan, W.Y. ; Pathak, Ravi ; Bergman, Keren

Author_Institution

Princeton Univ., NJ, USA

fYear

1996

fDate

2-7 June 1996

Firstpage

501

Lastpage

502

Abstract

Summary form only given. Mode-locked solid-state lasers with broadband gain have led to rapid advancements in the production of the ultrashort pulses. In 1991, Shestakov et al. reported the first room-temperature cw lasing of Cr/sup 4+/:YAG/sup /in the 550-nm telecommunications window of optical fiber. Kerr-lens mode-locking (KLM) of Cr/sup 4+/:YAG has produced pulses as short as 46 fs. In this paper, we demonstrate self-starting passive femtosecond mode-locking of Cr/sup 4+/:YAG using a nonlinear mirror called a saturable Bragg reflector (SBR). We pump the Cr/sup 4+/:YAG, whose absorption band is centered around 1000 nm, with a diode-pumped Nd:YVO/sub 4/ laser. We discuss the SBR mode-locking of this laser and compare with KLM techniques.

Keywords

chromium; laser mirrors; laser mode locking; optical pumping; optical saturation; solid lasers; 550 nm; Cr/sup 4+/:YAG laser; YAG:Cr; YAl5O12:Cr; broadband gain; diode-pumped Nd:YVO/sub 4/ laser pumping; nonlinear mirror; saturable Bragg reflector; self-starting passive femtosecond mode-locking; solid-state laser; ultrashort pulses; Chromium; Laser excitation; Laser mode locking; Mirrors; Optical fibers; Optical pulses; Production; Pump lasers; Solid lasers; Ultrafast optics;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Lasers and Electro-Optics, 1996. CLEO '96., Summaries of papers presented at the Conference on

Conference_Location

Anaheim, CA, USA

Print_ISBN

1-55752-443-2

Type

conf

Filename

864981