99 fs Nd:Glass Laser Mode-Locked with Carbon Nanotube Saturable Absorber Mirror

Abstract

The mode-locked operation of Nd:silicate glass with both single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs-SAM) and semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors (SESAMs) has been investigated. SWCNT-SAM mode-locking has been optimized in Nd-doped bulk lasers for the first time, yielding 99-fs pulses at 1070 nm. For comparison, by using a SESAM instead of SWCNT-SAM, pulses as short as 87 fs and a tuning range of 30 nm were achieved. Related to the applied 200-mW single-mode laser diode as pump source the lasers were characterized by high efficiency and low threshold. The optimized low-power pump setup yielded a remarkable slope efficiency of 46.5% in the cw regime. (C) 2010 The Japan Society of Applied Physic