Use of a transverse KD*P Pockels cell and novel low-loss sapphire Rochon po
larizer to cavity dump a hard-aperture, Kerr-lens mode-locked, Ti:sapphire
oscillator is demonstrated. High-quality 90-fs pulses with energies of simi
lar to 50 nJ at repetition rates of up to 50 kHz were obtained. (C) 2001 Op
tical Society of America.