Mar 17 2008
Femtosecond lasers are a type of laser that discharges optical pulses in femtoseconds. Femtosecond lasers belong to a class of ultrashort pulse lasers or ultrafast lasers. Passive mode locking technologies has been employed for the generation of short pulses.
Passively mode-locked lasers can emit high quality ultrashort pulses with an average durations ranging from 30 femtoseconds and 30 picoseconds. A variety of diode-pumped lasers are used for passive mode-locked lasers with normal output powers ranging between 100 milliwatts to 1 watt. Another type of passively mode-locked lasers is the fiber laser. The pulse duration of fiber lasers ranges from 50 femtosecond to 500 femtosecond with an average output power of several milliwatts.
It is also possible to passively mode-lock vertical external cavity surface-emitting lasers. These vertical external cavity surface-emitting lasers can deliver a mixture of high pulse repetition rates, high average power output and short pulse durations.
Important Factors of Femtosecond Lasers
Three important factors govern the performance of femtosecond lasers. These include:
- The duration of the pulse
- The repetition rate of the pulse; and
- The energy and average output power of the pulse
Source: AzoOptics