Patent ID: 7538936

Claim:
A pulse laser beam generating device comprising: a semiconductor laser that has an average light output power of equal to or more than 1 μW unobstructed by amplified spontaneous emission noise after pre-amplification, and that generates light pulses having a repetition rate of 100 kHz to 10 MHz; a pre-optical amplifier that is based on an optical fiber and amplifies the light pulses from said semiconductor laser; a filter that extracts the light pulses amplified by said pre-optical amplifier in a band narrower than the width widened by the frequency chirping of said semiconductor laser, and that reduces the time interval of the light pulses; a main optical amplifier that receives the light pulses from said filter and is based on an optical fiber having low nonlinear effects and minimal distort ion in the optical spectrum due to self phase modulation; and a nonlinear optical device for generating supercontinuum light by using light pulses of high peak power sufficiently amplified by the main optical amplifier.