Harmonic mode locking and multiple pulsing in a soft-aperture Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti : sapphire laser

Abstract

We report the observation of harmonic mode locking and multiple pulse operations in a soft-aperture Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser by varying the total intra-cavity dispersion. Second, third, and fourth order harmonic mode locking as well as multiple pulsing with interpulse separation ranging from femtosecond to nanosecond are observed. The laser is characterized in these regimes in terms of wavelength, bandwidth, pulsewidth, average and peak powers as functions of group velocity dispersion. By introducing a loss difference term into gain dynamic analysis, we conclude that gain depletion and recovery mechanisms are responsible for the underlying physics of current observations. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.