Antiresonant nonlinear mirror for passive laser modelocking

摘要

An antiresonant nonlinear mirror to replace one mirror of a laser for passive modelocking of the laser, the antiresonant nonlinear mirror comprising: a beam splitter for coupling the mirror to a laser cavity; a mirror arrangement for defining an optical ring with the beam splitter in which two light beams produced by the beam splitter in response to a light beam from the laser cavity can counterpropagate around the ring; an intensity dependent anisotropic nonlinear element disposed within the ring; and a polarization sensitive element disposed within the ring for adjusting the birefringence thereof to produce spontaneous modelocking in the coupled laser cavity.