Abstract

Semiconductor saturable absorbers are a widely used technology for generating femtosecond pulses in solid state lasers, providing advantages such as self-starting operation and the potential for compact laser cavities. The most common semiconductor saturable absorber devices are fabricated by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and have been used for both saturable absorber modelocking and initiation of Kerr lens modelocking (KLM) in many solid state laser systems.^1,2 However, MBE has disadvantages including high complexity and cost as well as lattice matching constraints that limit material choice.

© 2001 Optical Society of America