Abstract

The colliding pulse-modelocked laser [1] offers direct generation of femtosecond optical pulses with CW pumping. The use of CW pumping is desirable because the length of the dye laser cavity is not critical, however only gain dyes with sufficiently long lifetimes can be used, typically in the visible range. Recently, Dobler et al. have shown that a synchronously pumped Styryl-9 ring dye laser with an intracavity saturable absorber can produce pulses as short as 65 fs [2] in the region of 860 nm.

© 1986 Optical Society of America