《Kerr-lens mode-locking and addictive modelocking》.pdfVIP

Chapter 7 Kerr-Lens and Additive Pulse Mode Locking There are many ways to generate saturable absorber action. One can use real saturable absorbers, such as semiconductors or dyes and solid-state laser media. One can also exploit artificial saturable absorbers. The two most prominent artificial saturable absorber modelocking techniques are called Kerr-Lens Mode Locking (KLM) and Additive Pulse Mode Locking (APM). APM is sometimes also called Coupled-Cavity Mode Locking (CCM). KLM was invented in the early 90’s [1][2][3][4][5][6][7], but was already predicted to occur much earlier [8][9][10]· 7.1 Kerr-Lens Mode Locking (KLM) The general principle behind Kerr-Lens Mode Locking is sketched in Fig. 7.1. A pulse that builds up in a laser cavity containing a gain medium and a Kerr medium experiences not only self-phase modulation but also self focussing, that is nonlinear lensing of the laser beam, due to the nonlinear refractive in- dex of the Kerr medium. A spatio-temporal laser pulse propagating through the Kerr medium has a time dependent mode size as higher intensities ac- quire stronger focussing. If a hard aperture is placed at the right position in the cavity, it strips of the wings of the pulse, leading to a shortening of the pulse. Such combined mechanism has the same effect as a saturable ab- sorber. If the electronic Kerr effect with response time of a few femtoseconds or less is used, a fast saturable absorber has been created. Instead of a sep- 257 258CHAPTER 7. KERR-LENS AND ADDITIVE PULSE MODE LOCKING soft aperture hard aperture Kerr gain Medium self -