Abstract

Sources of tunable, energetic femtosecond pulses are of substantial interest to a variety of scientific communities. Previously, femtosecond pulses in the microjoule range were only possible through complex dye amplifier schemes,¹ Recently, we reported on the amplification of 150-fs pulses to the millijoule level at 1 kHz using Τί:Αl₂Ο₃.² This system resulted in a substantial increase in pulse energy over previous technologies (essentially two orders of magnitude greater than conventional dye amplifiers), as well as a considerable simplification in the overall amplifier scheme, improving the reliability of these types of systems. A variety of investigations in ultrafast chemistry and physics are currently in progress with this source (e.g., Ref. 3) attesting to the utility of this laser.

© 1993 Optical Society of America