Abstract

To generate ultrashort optical pulses, modelocking of lasers has ordinarily been used. Even using this excellent method, however, we can not generate subpicosecond pulse from narrow-linewidth lasers because the pulse width is limited by gain-linewidth of the laser. On the other hand, a Fabry-Perot electrooptic modulator (FP modulator) [1] is applicable to almost all kinds of lasers and can produce subpicosecond pulses without any linewidth limitation. Actually 0.8ps pulses were obtained from an Ar laser (linewidth: 4GHz)[2]. Unfortunately, the FP modulator has a disadvantage of low power efficiency. Since the peak value of the power transmittance of it is at most unity, the energy efficiency (average output power/average input power) becomes smaller as the pulsewidth becomes shorter as shown in Fig. 1(a).

© 1990 Optical Society of America