Diode-pumped passively mode-locked femtosecond Yb:CTGG laser

A diode-pumped passively mode-locked Yb:CTGG disordered crystal laser has been demonstrated for the first time to our knowledge. With a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror for passive mode locking and two Gires–Tournois interferometer mirrors for dispersion compensation, pulses as short as 389 fs at a repetition rate of 45 MHz were obtained at the central wavelength of 1,037.8 nm. The maximum average power was 420 mW, corresponding to pulse energy of 9.3 nJ and peak power of 24 kW.