title: Picosecond pulses from wavelength-swept continuous-wave Fourier domain mode-locked lasers.
abstract: Ultrafast lasers have a crucial function in many fields of science; however, up to now, high-energy pulses directly from compact, efficient and low-power semiconductor lasers are not available. Therefore, we introduce a new approach based on temporal compression of the continuous-wave, wavelength-swept output of Fourier domain mode-locked lasers, where a narrowband optical filter is tuned synchronously to the round-trip time of light in a kilometre-long laser cavity. So far, these rapidly swept lasers enabled orders-of-magnitude speed increase in optical coherence tomography. Here we report on the generation of ~60-70 ps pulses at 390 kHz repetition rate. As energy is stored optically in the long-fibre delay line and not as population inversion in the laser-gain medium, high-energy pulses can now be generated directly from a low-power, compact semiconductor-based oscillator. Our theory predicts subpicosecond pulses with this new technique in the future.
authors.affiliation: Lehrstuhl für BioMolekulare Optik, Fakultät für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Oettingenstrasse 67, 80538 Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Christoph M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Eigenwillig
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wieser
authors.forename: Sebastian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Todor
authors.forename: Benjamin R
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Biedermann
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Klein
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jirauschek
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Huber