A New Class Of Ultraviolet Femtosecond Sources

Abstract

We constructed a quantitative theoretical model of an intracavity frequency doubled and passively mode-locked laser and efficiently extracted an ultraviolet femtosecond pulse train of milliwatt average power and 100 MHz repetition rate from a colliding pulse mode-locked dye laser by intracavity frequency doubling in KDP.The ultraviolet and visible outputs, which are comparable in power and pulse duration, are perfectly synchronized with each other. The major findings are that for second harmonic conversion efficiencies consistent with continuing laser operation 1) a stable mode-locking regime always exists, although it narrows somewhat with increasing conversion efficiency; 2) the duration of the fundamental pulses can always be preserved, even in the femtosecond time domain, by re-adjusting saturable gain and saturable loss parameters; 3) the energy of the fundamental pulses can also be preserved under the same conditions.© (1989) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.