Abstract

The antiresonant Fabry–Perot saturable semiconductor absorber (A-FPSA) has been successfully used to passively mode lock many different solid-state lasers. The main advantage of the A-FPSA is that important operation parameters such as the saturation intensity, losses, and impulse response can be influenced by the material and the device parameters and can be adapted to the requirements of solid-state lasers. We present a detailed quantitative discussion of the operation parameters, derive simple design rules, and show that the contribution of the A-FPSA to the starting and the stabilization of mode locking is much larger than the effect of Kerr lensing in a mode-locked Nd:YAG laser.

© 1995 Optical Society of America

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