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Femtosecond pulse generation from a Tm:CaYLuAlO4 laser employing a birefringent filter as wavelength selector

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Abstract

In this paper, we demonstrate a SESAM mode-locked Tm:CaYLuAlO4 (a-cut) laser in the 2-μm spectral range. A birefringent filter (BF) is employed to shift the emission wavelength above 2 μm to support the stable mode locking through avoiding the structured water vapor absorption. Pulses as short as 288 fs are generated with a central wavelength of 2037 nm and an average power of 166 mW at a repetition rate of ~ 77.6 MHz. Moreover, wavelength tunable femtosecond laser with a tuning range from 2031.8 to 2081.1 nm is realized simply by rotating the birefringent filter around its surface normal. This work experimentally shows that birefringent filter is a simple and low-cost way to support the stable mode locking of Tm-bulk femtosecond lasers with an emission peak in the water vapor absorption region.

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Data availability

Data underlying the results presented in this paper are not publicly available at this time but may be obtained from the authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (62205171, 62175133, 62075090, 52032009), Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2020MF115) and Project of Taishan Scholar.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Science, Qingdao University of Technology, Qingdao, 266525, China

    Lulu Dong & Yichen Liu

  2. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Laser Materials and Devices, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, 2211161, China

    Ning Zhang, Heng Ding, Zhanxin Wang, Jian Liu, Yongguang Zhao & Xiaodong Xu

  3. College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266590, China

    Ning Zhang, Peifu Wang & Shande Liu

  4. School of Physics Science and Engineering, Institute for Advanced Study, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China

    Jun Xu

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  1. Lulu Dong
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  10. Xiaodong Xu
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by [Lulu Dong], [Ning Zhang], [Heng Ding] and [Peifu Wang]. The first draft of the manuscript was written by [Lulu Dong] and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Shande Liu or Xiaodong Xu.

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Dong, L., Zhang, N., Ding, H. et al. Femtosecond pulse generation from a Tm:CaYLuAlO4 laser employing a birefringent filter as wavelength selector. Appl. Phys. B 129, 114 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-023-08061-4

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