Yb3+-doped YVO4 crystal for efficient Kerr-lens mode locking in solid-state lasers.

We report the first demonstration, to our knowledge, of soft-aperture Kerr-lens mode locking in a diode-pumped femtosecond Yb3+:YVO4 laser. Near-transform-limited pulses as short as 61 fs are generated around a center wavelength of 1050 nm with an output power of 54 mW and a pulse repetition frequency of 104.5 MHz. This is, to our knowledge, the shortest pulse generated directly from an Yb laser having a crystalline host material. The femtosecond operation has a mode-locking threshold at an absorbed pump power of 190 mW. The nonlinear refractive indexes of the Yb3+:YVO4 crystal have been measured to be 19 x 10(-16) cm2/W and 15 x 10(-16) cm2/W for the sigma and pi polarizations, respectively, at 1080 nm.

[1]  D. E. Spence,et al.  60-fsec pulse generation from a self-mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser. , 1991, Optics letters.

[2]  F. Balembois,et al.  Diode-pumped Yb:Sr(3)Y(BO(3))(3) femtosecond laser. , 2002, Optics letters.

[3]  A. E. Troshin,et al.  Femtosecond pulse generation with a diode-pumped Yb3+:YVO4 laser. , 2005, Optics letters.

[4]  A. E. Troshin,et al.  Spectroscopy and continuous-wave diode-pumped laser action of Yb3+:YVO4. , 2004, Optics letters.

[5]  P. Georges,et al.  Z-scan measurements of the nonlinear refractive indices of novel Yb-doped laser crystal hosts , 2004, Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, 2004. (CLEO)..

[6]  U. Keller,et al.  Efficient and tunable diode-pumped femtosecond Yb:glass lasers. , 1998, Optics letters.

[7]  N. N. Posnov,et al.  Z-scan measurements of nonlinear refraction and Kerr-lens mode-locking with Yb3+:KY(WO4)2 , 2000 .

[8]  F. Kärtner,et al.  Semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors (SESAM's) for femtosecond to nanosecond pulse generation in solid-state lasers , 1996 .

[9]  U. Keller,et al.  Femtosecond Yb:YAG laser using semiconductor saturable absorbers. , 1995, Optics letters.

[10]  Patrick Georges,et al.  Ultra-short-pulsed and highly-efficient diode-pumped Yb:SYS mode-locked oscillators. , 2004, Optics express.

[11]  J. S. Aitchison,et al.  Characterization of the nonlinear refractive index of the laser crystal Yb:KGd(WO4)2 , 2003 .

[12]  W Sibbett,et al.  Highly efficient and low threshold diode-pumped Kerr-lens mode-locked Yb:KYW laser. , 2004, Optics express.

[13]  E. W. Stryland,et al.  Sensitive Measurement of Optical Nonlinearities Using a Single Beam Special 30th Anniversary Feature , 1990 .

[14]  J. Fujimoto,et al.  Compact dispersion-compensating geometry for Kerr-lens mode-locked femtosecond lasers. , 1994, Optics letters.

[15]  Witold Ryba-Romanowski,et al.  YVO4 crystals – puzzles and challenges , 2003 .

[16]  J G Fujimoto,et al.  Sub-two-cycle pulses from a Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser. , 1999, Optics letters.

[17]  A. Lagatsky,et al.  Pulsed laser operation of Y b-dope d KY(WO(4))(2) and KGd(WO(4))(2). , 1997, Optics letters.

[18]  G. Mourou,et al.  Diode-pumped Kerr-lens mode-locked Yb:KY(WO(4))(2) laser. , 2001, Optics letters.