The first experimental demonstration of a diode-pumped passively mode-locked femtosecond laser based on an Yb³⁺:CaGdAlO₄ single crystal is reported here. Yb³⁺:CaGdAlO₄ (Yb:CALGO) seems to be one of the most interesting since it both exhibits one of the broadest and smoothest emission spectrum (from 990 to 1080 nm) among ytterbium-doped materials and a relatively high thermal conductivity. The oscillator is directly diode-pumped by a high brightness 5-W fiber coupled laser diode and pulses are produced using a SESAM. It allows the production of pulses as short as 47 fs at 1050 nm, that is to our knowledge, the shortest laser pulses ever obtained from an oscillator based on Yb³⁺-doped bulk materials. The average power was 38 mW and the repetition rate 109 MHz.

Date Published: 17 April 2006
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 6190, Solid State Lasers and Amplifiers II, 619001 (17 April 2006); doi: 10.1117/12.662055

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6190:
Solid State Lasers and Amplifiers II
Alphan Sennaroglu, Editor(s)