U. Keller, G.W. tHooft, W.H. Knox, J.E. Cunningham, "Femtosecond pulses from a continuously self-starting passively mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser," Optics Letters, 16:1022-24, 1991.
Ursula Keller (AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, N.J.):
"Until the late 1980s, advances in ultrashort pulse generation were dominated by dye lasers. These ultrafast laser systems with pulse duration shorter than 100 femtoseconds are relatively large, are maintenance-intensive, and require a laboratory environment with a skilled technician or scientist to operate. An all-solid-state laser technology could provide a compact, reliable, push-button type of a laser. The development of diode-pumped solid-state lasers addressed these issues; however, for ultrashort solid- state lasers, a broad gain bandwidth was required."Renewed research efforts in tunable solid-state lasers produced the first demonstration of the Ti:sapphire laser and, more recently, diode-pumped laser materials such as Cr:LiSAF. The development of such laser materials was crucial in the current rapid developments in femto-second pulse generation.
"One...
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