Polarization-additive pulse mode-locking

Soliton ring fiber lasers can be also realized with active mode locking by polarization modulation [11.77], or by additive-pulse mode locking (APM). In the latter technique the pulse is split into the two arms of an interferometer and the coherent superposition of the self-phase modulated pulses results in pulse shortening [11.55]. 

The basis of the experimental femtosecond CARS apparatus developed by Okamoto and Yoshihara (1990) which is reproduced in Fig. 3.6-10 is essentially the same as that of Leonhardt et al. (1987) and Zinth et al. (1988) with the addition of the possibility to change the polarization of the laser radiation. The main parts of the system are two dye lasers with short pulses and high repetition rates, pumped by a cw mode-locked Nd YAG laser (1064 nm, repetition rate 81 MHz). The beam of the first dye-laser which produces light pulses with 75-100 fsec duration is divided into two parts of equal intensities and used as the pump and the probe beam. After fixed (for the pump beam) and variable (for the probe beam) optical delay lines, the radiation is focused onto the sample together with the Stokes radiation produced by the second laser (DL2), which is a standard synchronously pumped dye laser. The anti-Stokes signal generated in the sample is separated from the three input laser beams by an aperture, an interference filter, and a monochromator, and detected by a photomultiplier. For further details we refer to Okamoto and Yoshihara (1990). 

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