Abstract

SeIf-mode-locked Ti:sapphire lasers¹ have been successful in generating femtosecond pulses in the near-infrared regime. Without using any active or passive starting mechanism these mode-locked systems cannot start automati-colly.¹ We used a shaker to vibrate one of the end mirrors of the Ti:sapphire laser cavity to start and maintain self-mode-iocking (SML) of the Ti:sapphire laser.³ When the mirror on the shaker is oscillating above the threshold³ for the laser to start SML, a stable mode-locked pulse train appears immediately. With careful alignment of the SML Tirsapphire laser cavity, pulses as short as 43 fs have been observed in our laser. During our measurements, we tried turning on and off the shaker; we found that the pulsewidth and the corresponding spectrum bandwidth were not affected.

© 1992 Optical Society of America