CONTROL OF SOLID-STATE LASER DYNAMICS BY SEMICONDUCTOR-DEVICES

We have successfully demonstrated that an appropriately designed semic onductor saturable absorber device, the antiresonant Fabry-Perot satur able absorber, can reliably start and sustain stable mode locking of s olid state lasers such as Nd:YAG, Nd:YLF, Nd:Glass, Cr:LiSAF, and Ti:s apphire lasers. Especially for solid state lasers with long upper-stat e lifetimes, previous attempts to produce self-starting passive mode l ocking with saturable absorbers was always accompanied by self-Q-switc hing. We derive criteria that characterize the dynamic behavior of sol id state lasers in the important regimes of Q-switching, mode-locked Q -switching, and continuous-wave mode lacking in the picosecond and fem tosecond range for the pulsewidth. We demonstrate that semiconductor a bsorbers can be designed to predetermine the dynamic behavior of a las er for a given solid state laser material and present an experimental verification. This allows for the development and design of robust, co mpact pico- and femtosecond solid state laser sources for scientific a nd industrial applications.