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A novel Femtosecond Mode-Locked Laser with Flexible Control of the Emitted Spectrum
Shai Yefet , Na'aman Amer , Avi Pe'er
Physics Department and Nanotechnology Institute, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
In recent years, frequency comb techniques have become a major tool in precision metrology in general and in atomic and molecular spectroscopy in particular. As comb technology and applications progress, a need is clear for multi-color femtosecond pulse trains for a wide range of research applications, such as precision Stimulated Raman spectroscopy and multi photon microscopy. Up till now, multi-colored pulses were hard to obtain using one laser and required synchronization of two lasers, for example, by a single intra-cavity Kerr medium shared by two different laser cavities. Here we present a simpler method to generate a broadband multi-colored femtosecond pulses using a single Ti:Sapphire laser, allowing one to develop sources with precise control of both frequency and time domain properties of the emitted light pulsed. Specifically, we present the design and implementation of a modelocked Ti:Sapphire femtosecond laser based on a novel design of the laser cavity. First, by placing the gain medium in the cavity at a position where the spectrum is spatially dispersed, and by controlling the spatial shape of the pump beam in the gain medium, we are able to control the emitted spectrum precisely. In particular, the gain medium is placed in the Fourier plane of this in-cavity pulse shaper allowing shaping the emission spectrum of the pulse. In principle, by spatially shaping the pump beam, as several lobes in space, one can obtain a multi-lobed laser spectrum, where each lobe's central wavelength and width can be independently tuned within the Ti:Sapphire gain bandwidth (700-1000nm range), while maintaining pulsed operation and synchronization of all lobes. In addition, since the gain medium is located at a Fourier plane, where the pulse is spatially dispersed and chirped, Kerr lensing at the gain medium can be neglected completely. Thus, the mode locking mechanism in the cavity is fully determined by the independent additional Kerr medium.