Experimental and theoretical studies of complex pulse evolutions in a passively mode-locked ring dye laser

Author

Avramopoulos, H. ; French, P.M.W. ; Williams, J.A.R. ; New, G.H.C. ; Taylor, J.R.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Phys., Imperial Coll., London, UK

Volume

24

Issue

9

fYear

1988

fDate

9/1/1988 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1884

Lastpage

1892

Abstract

A detailed experimental and theoretical study has been made of the role of group velocity dispersion and self-phase modulation arising from time-dependent absorption saturation and the optical Kerr effect in a Rhodamine 110 CPM dye laser. Periodic pulse evolutions are observed, when both positive and negative frequency chirp are present, that are reminiscent of those governed by the nonlinear Schrodinger equation but that are, in fact, distinctly different. Similar results have been obtained with the standard Rhodamine 6G system, and it is believed that the theoretical model is generally applicable to any passively mode-locked femtosecond dye laser. An important consequence of these results is that they permit the absolute value of the group velocity dispersion in the laser cavity to be estimated

Keywords

dye lasers; laser mode locking; optical Kerr effect; optical saturable absorption; ring lasers; Rhodamine 110 CPM; absorption saturation; complex pulse evolutions; femtosecond dye laser; frequency chirp; group velocity dispersion; laser cavity; nonlinear Schrodinger equation; optical Kerr effect; passively mode-locked ring dye laser; self-phase modulation; Absorption; Chirp modulation; Dispersion; Laser mode locking; Laser theory; Nonlinear optics; Optical modulation; Optical pulses; Optical saturation; Ultrafast optics;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/3.7131

Filename

7131