High precision optical characterization of semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors.
Semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors (SESAMs) have become a key element of many ultrafast laser sources, enabling passively modelocked lasers with >100 GHz repetition rate or with >10 microJ pulse energy. Precise knowledge of the nonlinear optical reflectivity is required to optimize the SESAMs for self-starting passive modelocking at record high repetition rates or pulse energies. In this article, we discuss a new method for wide dynamic range nonlinear reflectivity measurements. We achieve a higher accuracy (<0.05%) with a simpler and more cost-efficient measurement scheme compared with previous measurement systems. The method can easily be implemented for arbitrary wavelength regions and fluence ranges.
Department of Physics, Institute of Quantum Electronics, ETH Zurich, Wolfgang-Pauli-Str. 16, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland.
D J
DJ
Maas
B
B
Rudin
A-R
AR
Bellancourt
D
D
Iwaniuk
S V
SV
Marchese
T
T
Südmeyer
U
U
Keller