Progress on all-solid state passively mode-locked picosecond and femtosecond lasers

Femtosecond and picosecond pulses can find many applications if they can be produced with laser sources that are not only powerful and efficient but also compact and reliable. In continuous wave operation, diode pumping of solid-state lasers has allowed for a rapid progress towards powerful, compact and reliable sources, while the often used technique of Kerr lens modelocking for pulsed operation tends to be in conflict with requirements for diode-pumpable high power designs. Passive modelocking with semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors solves this problem as it relaxes the restrictions on the cavity design. We report on our recent achievements in this field. In particular we present a novel semiconductor device for dispersion compensation and various improved diode-pumped passively modelocked lasers. Also we show which laser parameters determine the stability of a passively modelocked lasers against Q-switching instabilities.