Patent ID: 7864821

Claim:
A soliton mode-locked solid-state laser apparatus having a resonator which includes therein a solid-state laser medium, a saturable absorption mirror, and a negative group velocity dispersion element, wherein: the solid-state laser medium and saturable absorption mirror are disposed in close proximity to each other at a distance not greater than twice a Rayleigh length, wherein said Rayleigh length is obtained on the basis of beam waist diameter at the saturable absorption mirror; the saturable absorption mirror has an absorption modulation depth Î”R not less than 0.4%; and the absolute value |D| of a total intracavity linear dispersion amount D when light having a predetermined wavelength makes one round trip in the resonator, which is represented by the following relational expression, is set within a range of minimum value 0 to maximum value which is calculated from pulse bandwidth Î”Î» p , in which Î”G(CW) â‰¦Î”R/2 and Î”G(DP) â‰¦Î”R/S are satisfied (where, Î”G(CW) is the gain advantage of the CW background with respect to the fundamental soliton pulse, Î”G(DP) is the gain advantage of the double pulse with respect to the fundamental soliton pulse in the resonator, and S is the saturation level of the saturable absorption mirror), Ï„ P = 1.76 â¢ ï˜ƒ D ï˜„ â¢ Î» 0 â¢ A effL , 4 â¢ Ï€ â¢ â¢ n 2 â¢ ls â¢ 1 E P (where, c is the velocity of light, Î» 0 is the center wavelength, A eff,L (=Ï€Ï‰ L 2 ) is the oscillation light beam cross section at the laser medium, n 2 is the nonlinear refraction index, 1 s is the crystal length of the laser medium, and E p is the intracavity pulse energy.