Resonant passive mode-locked Nd:YLF laser

Author

Keller, Ursula ; Chiu, T. Heng

Author_Institution

AT&T Bell Lab., Holmdel, NJ, USA

Volume

28

Issue

7

fYear

1992

fDate

7/1/1992 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1710

Lastpage

1721

Abstract

The authors review the theory of resonant passive mode locking (RPM) lasers and present experimental results for an improved Nd:YLF RPM laser that produced stable pulses as short as 3.7 ps at a repetition rate of 250 MHz. The average output power was 550 mW with 1.3-W average pump power from a Ti:sapphire laser. It was possible to couple 85% out of the nonlinear coupled cavity and still maintain stable mode locking. In RPM and amplitude nonlinearity such as absorption bleaching in a semiconductor reflector introduces an intensity-dependent reflectivity which strongly mode locks the laser. The reduced carrier lifetime in a low-temperature MBE-grown (LT) InGaAs-GaAs quantum-well reflector produces a sufficiently fast saturable absorber in the coupled cavity

Keywords

laser cavity resonators; laser mode locking; lithium compounds; neodymium; optical saturable absorption; reviews; solid lasers; yttrium compounds; 1.3 W; 250 MHz; 3.7 ps; 550 mW; LiYF4:Nd; Ti:sapphire laser; absorption bleaching; amplitude nonlinearity; average output power; average pump power; carrier lifetime; intensity-dependent reflectivity; low temperature molecular beam epitaxy grown InGaAs-GaAs quantum well reflector; nonlinear coupled cavity; repetition rate; resonant passive mode locked YLF:Nd laser; review; saturable absorber; semiconductor reflector; stable mode locking; stable pulses; theory; Couplings; Laser excitation; Laser mode locking; Laser stability; Laser theory; Optical pulses; Power generation; Pump lasers; Resonance; Semiconductor lasers;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/3.142558

Filename

142558