Picosecond and femtosecond pulse generation near 1000 nm from a frequency-doubled Nd:YAG-pumped cw dye laser

Abstract

Efficient cw dye laser operation has recently been achieved from 875 to 1084 nm by pumping two new styryl derivatives—dyes Styryl 13 (S13) and Styryl 14 (S14)—with an Ar-ion laser.1 We report synchronous mode-locking of an S14-based dye laser medium in a simple prism-tuned linear cavity. This allowed the generation of picosecond (~2-ps) pulses to 1030 nm when pumped by a frequency-doubled mode-locked cw Nd:YAG laser. This is believed to be the first report of green-pumped synchronously mode-locked cw dye laser operation beyond 1 μm. The identification of suitable polymethine cyanine dye saturable absorbers has allowed hybrid synchronously pumped passive mode-locking of the dye laser. For this we used the full dispersion-compensated linear cavity arrangement with which 55-280-fs pulses have been generated in the 560-840-nm range.2 Pulses as short as 228 and 263 fs were produced in this manner in previously uncovered spectral regions near 975 and 900 nm, respectively. These pulses should provide immediate use in, for example, investigations of the photorefractive effect in GaAs on a picosecond and subpicosecond time scale.