Self-starting Ti:sapphire holographic laser oscillator

We demonstrate, for the first time to our knowledge, operation of a holographic laser oscillator that uses laser-pumped Ti:sapphire (Ti3+:Al2O3) as the gain medium. The device is self-starting and self-adaptive by virtue of spontaneous gain-grating formation. We present experimental results of the system that include gain-switched pulses of 25-60-ns duration in a TEM00 mode and as much as 11 mJ of output energy from a plane output coupler and 47 mJ from an intracavity polarizer port.