title: Generation and direct measurement of giant chirp in a passively mode-locked laser.
abstract: We evaluate the shape and chirp of nanosecond pulses from a fiber laser passively mode locked with a nanotube-based saturable absorber by using a synchronously scanning streak camera and a monochromator to directly measure the pulse spectrogram. We show that the stable sech(2) output pulse possesses a predominantly linear chirp, with a residual quartic phase and low noise. Comparison with analytical mode-locking theory shows a good quantitative agreement with the master equation mode-locking model.
authors.affiliation: Femtosecond Optics Group, Department of Physics, Imperial College London, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ, UK. edmund.kelleher08@imperial.ac.uk
authors.forename: E J R
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Kelleher
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Travers
authors.forename: E P
authors.initials: EP
authors.lastname: Ippen
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: A C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Ferrari
authors.forename: S V
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Popov
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Taylor