Single-cycle-pulse generation in a coherently mode-locked laser with an ultrashort cavity

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the possibility of a passive mode-locking regime in a two-section laser with an ultrashort cavity of the length around ten wavelengths of the medium resonant transition or even less. It is shown that such a regime is enabled through the coherent mode-locking phenomena arising due to the self-induced transparency when the gain and absorption bandwidths do not impose any restrictions on the duration of the generated pulse. Under such conditions, a laser with an ultrashort cavity could produce output pulses with the terahertz (THz) repetition rate and the duration up to a single optical cycle. Moreover, several scaling rules were derived, which allow for further shortening of the output pulse duration with the respective scaling of the media parameters.