Abstract

Femtosecond and picosecond operating regimes of an argon-ion-pumped Cr³⁺:LiSrAlF₆ laser, passively mode locked using a saturable absorber, are described. At low absorber concentrations, self-starting cw mode locking is demonstrated, which yields pulses as short as 33 fs after extracavity prism compensation. At higher concentrations, both cw mode-locked and Q-switched mode-locked operation is possible. The significance of the recovery time of the absorber is discussed.

© 1992 Optical Society of America

50-fs pulse generation from a self-starting cw passively mode-locked Cr:LiSrAlF₆ laser

N. H. Rizvi, P. M. W. French, and J. R. Taylor
Opt. Lett. 17(12) 877-879 (1992)

50-fs pulse generation from a self-mode-locked Cr:LiSrAlF₆ laser

J. M. Evans, D. E. Spence, W. Sibbett, B. H. T. Chai, and A. Miller
Opt. Lett. 17(20) 1447-1449 (1992)

Generation of 150-fs tunable pulses in Cr:LiSrAlF₆

A. Miller, P. LiKamWa, B. H. T. Chai, and E. W. Van Stryland
Opt. Lett. 17(3) 195-197 (1992)

Generation of pulses as short as 93 fs from self-starting femtosecond Cr:LiSrAlF₆ lasers by exploiting multiple-quantum-well absorbers

N. H. Rizvi, P. M. W. French, J. R. Taylor, P. J. Delfyett, and L. T. Florez
Opt. Lett. 18(12) 983-985 (1993)

Self-mode-locked Cr³⁺:LiCaAlF₆ laser

P. LiKamWa, B. H. T. Chai, and A. Miller
Opt. Lett. 17(20) 1438-1440 (1992)