Phase-stabilized ultrafast lasers signal new era in measurement and research

Published

May 15, 2006

Author(s)

Tara M. Fortier, A Bartels, Scott A. Diddams

Abstract

The development of short-pulsed lasers has progressed steadily over the past 30 years. In the search for better techniques and materials to generate shorter and shorter pulses, the 1990?s witnessed the arrival of Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti:sapphire lasers as the system of choice for many applications. With the broadest fractional gain bandwidth of any conventional lasing material, Ti:sapphire can support the oscillation of millions of coherently related frequencies. In a mode-locked laser, these laser cavity frequency modes have a fixed phase relationship and add together coherently such that the Fourier superposition results in a very strong amplitude modulation of the optical carrier-wave. With sufficiently broad gain bandwidth, this modulation is so strong that all the light waves add up constructively for only a few femtoseconds (10^-15 s), resulting in ultrashort pulses that repeat at a periodic interval determined by the roundtrip travel time of the field inside the laser cavity (typically 1-20 ns). Since all of the energy in the light waves is concentrated in such a short time span, these light pulses possess significant peak power (~1 MW). In the research field of ultrafast phenomena, such a laser?s applications have traditionally been two-fold; one may either make use of the large peak power for non-linear optics, or take advantage of the fs resolution for time-domain spectroscopy.

Citation

Laser Focus World

Volume

42

Issue

5

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

Local Download

Keywords

optical frequency combs, optical frequency metrology, ultrafast lasers

Citation

Fortier, T. , Bartels, A. and Diddams, S. (2006), Phase-stabilized ultrafast lasers signal new era in measurement and research, Laser Focus World, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=50327 (Accessed May 6, 2026)

Additional citation formats