Noncritical matching of cavity lengths for uninterrupted additive-pulse mode locking of a cw Nd:YLF laser.
Stable interferometrically insensitive operation of an additive-pulse mode-locked Nd:YLF laser is observed over 4.8 microm of continuous detuning of the cavity lengths. This phenomenon continuously persists over 250 microm of coarse cavity-length detuning. Outside this range interferometric mode locking typically associated with additive-pulse mode locking is observed for detuning lengths of over 1 mm. The external cavity of the system consists of a multimode fiber whose four possible second-order proper modes are all excited. The underlying mechanism is a slow process with response times in the subhertz and hertz regions.
E C
EC
Cheung
J M
JM
Liu
J K
JK
Chee