Improved passively mode-locking semiconductor disk laser (SDL)

摘要

A passively mode-locking laser comprising a resonator 2 terminated by a first mirror 3 and second mirror 4 and folded by a third mirror 5 and fourth mirror 6; the third mirror comprises a reflector surmounted by a multilayer semiconductor gain medium including at least one quantum well layer while the second mirror comprises an intensity saturable mirror; the resonator is configured to provide a cross sectional area of an intra cavity resonating field on the intensity saturable mirror that is greater than or equal to a cross sectional area of the intra cavity resonating field on the multilayer semiconductor gain medium. This produces a larger beam cross-sectional area on the intensity saturable mirror which reduces the intensity at the mirror and therefore increases its reliability. The intensity saturable mirror comprises a saturable Bragg reflector (SBR). A fifth mirror may be included between the first and third mirrors. The output of a continuous wave (cw) optical field can be used to pump the field medium.