INTRACAVITY SHAPING OF MODE-LOCKED LASER-PULSES

A novel laser synthesizer of optical pulses is proposed. It is based on injection locking of numerous weakly coupled laser oscillators with a common resonator. A proper shaping of the susceptibility through shaping the pump beam reduces the dispersion of all orders due to the resonance transition and leads to generation of pulses close to the inverse bandwidth of the gain medium. A simple intracavity shaping mechanism allows synthesis of higher-order time supermodes directly from the laser. This technique could be applied to both active and passive mode-locked lasers with homogeneously and inhomogeneously broadened transitions. The possibility of using a compound gain medium is also discussed.