Abstract

Saturable absorber mirrors (SAMs) have found widespread application in the generation of ultrashort optical pulses and are one of the driving forces behind the all-solid-state revolution in femtosecond optics. While the design of the absorption properties of SAMs and its influence on the stability of mode-locking has been thoroughly investigated in the recent years, its phase and dispersion properties have only found little attention. Isolated examples for SAM designs that simultaneously provide dispersion compensation of a few hundred fs² have been discussed [1] but did not find widespread use so far. Here we discuss a resonant concept, simultaneously providing large amounts of saturable absorption and dispersion with unprecedented values up to the order of 0.01 ps². We will provide a theoretical framework [2] for predicting the SAM properties from a few optical key properties. Dispersive effects can also occur as a parasitic side effect in regular SAM designs. We will also address this aspect and indicate which designs are particularly susceptible toward such unwanted effects.

© 2007 IEEE