1. Semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors supporting sub-10-fs pulses
- Author
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Volker Scheuer, Theo T. Tschudi, François Morier-Genoud, Ursula Keller, Dirk Sutter, Franz X. Kärtner, N. Matuschek, I. D. Jung, Z. Shi, and M. Tilsch
- Subjects
Quantum optics ,Materials science ,Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous) ,business.industry ,General Engineering ,General Physics and Astronomy ,Soliton (optics) ,Saturable absorption ,Semiconductor saturable absorber ,Laser ,law.invention ,Optics ,law ,Broadband ,Sapphire ,Optoelectronics ,business ,Dispersion compensation - Abstract
We generated self-starting sub-10-fs pulses from a Ti:sapphire laser using a combination of a broadband semi- conductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM), novel double- chirped mirrors, and Kerr-lens modelocking. We present a de- tailed overview of broadband SESAMs used in Ti:sapphire lasers and discuss their design issues. Using such a SESAM to assist the KLM process, we have generated pulses with a duration of only 6: 5f s, the shortest to date directly from the laser. Pulses as short as 13 fs were generated by soliton modelocking alone. Higher-order dispersion compensation was achieved with novel double-chirped mirrors in combina- tion with intracavity prisms.
- Published
- 1997
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