Resonantly pumped Kerr-lens mode-locked Er:YVO₄laser

Abstract

We report on a Kerr lens, self-mode-locked Er 3+ :YVO 4 laser, based on the high third order nonlinearity of the gain medium. The Er 3+ :YVO 4 is resonantly pumped by a CW Er-fiber laser into the absorption band around 1538 nm and operates at ~ 1604 nm with a 1.8 W average output power and ~ 40% slope efficiency relative to the absorbed pump. The laser yields a pulse train at a 240 MHz repetition rate. The pulsewidth is estimated to fall between 15 and 100 psec.