Abstract

Recently, a novel mode locking technique in the femtosecond region has been demonstrated for cw pumped titanium-doped sapphire lasers employing the self-focussing effect within the laser crystal.^[1,2] In the present talk the generation conditions and the pulse properties of lasers with an internal Kerr-lens for different types of resonators are investigated. At first we consider a nearly symmetric cavity (in the kind of the MIRA-laser) with an internal aperture acting in combination with the self-focussing laser rod analog as a saturable absorber. In Fig. 1 the schematic of a cavity with two curved focussing mirrors M₂ and M₃ of focal width f, the laser crystal acting as a Kerr-lens p and an aperture S just in the front of the mirror M4 is represented.

© 1992 IQEC