Technique for the generation of optical pulses in modelocked lasers by dispersive control of the oscillation pulse width
First Claim
1. A modelocked laser comprising:
- means for generating laser energy;
a gain medium for amplifying said laser energy within a laser cavity;
means for reflecting said energy along an axis which passes through the gain medium;
a modelocking mechanism for inducing modelocking of said laser, and sustaining a high non-linearity within the laser cavity;
means for outputting laser energy generated within said cavity; and
a dispersive delay line comprised of at least one chirped grating, for controlling a pulse width of said output laser energy.
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Abstract
The invention relates to modelocked lasers including highly dispersive optical elements. The dispersive optical elements increase the oscillation pulse width inside the laser oscillators, which reduces the nonlinearity of the laser cavity for a given oscillating pulse energy. Compared to conventionally designed modelocked lasers, an increase in output pulse energy by one to three orders is achieved. As way of example, the technique is applied to an erbium fiber laser, where a chirped fiber Bragg grating is employed as the dispersive element. By using a Kerr-modelocking technique, a high nonlinearity may be sustained inside the fiber laser cavity, which leads to the generation of pulses with psec widths and energies up to 2 nJ. The large bandwidth of the chirped fiber Bragg grating allows a wavelength tuning range in excess of 10 nm, which is achieved by polarization control and a control of the gain spectrum of the laser.
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Citations
25 Claims
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1. A modelocked laser comprising:
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means for generating laser energy; a gain medium for amplifying said laser energy within a laser cavity; means for reflecting said energy along an axis which passes through the gain medium; a modelocking mechanism for inducing modelocking of said laser, and sustaining a high non-linearity within the laser cavity; means for outputting laser energy generated within said cavity; and a dispersive delay line comprised of at least one chirped grating, for controlling a pulse width of said output laser energy. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
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