Femtosecond pulse amplification by coherent addition in a passive optical cavity

By simultaneously controlling repetition and carrier frequencies, one can achieve the phase coherent super-position of a collection of successive pulses from a mode-locked laser. An optical cavity can be used for coherent delay and constructive interference of sequential pulses until a cavity dump is enabled to switch out the amplified pulse. This approach will lead to an effective amplification process through decimation of the original pulse rate while the overall coherence from the oscillator is preserved. Detailed calculations show the limiting effects of intracavity dispersion and indicate that enhancement of sub-100-fs pulses to microjoule energies is experimentally feasible. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.