Importance

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Abstract

A regenerative amplifier includes a resonant cavity having a gain medium and a spectral filter located in the cavity. A source is provided to pump the gain medium and thereby raise it to an excited state. Elements are also provided for creating laser seed pulses which are then injected into the resonant cavity, these elements preferably include in part a mode-locked oscillator having a wavelength substantially the same as that at which the gain medium can support amplification of the energy of the injected pulse. In a preferred embodiment the gain medium is Ti:Sapphire for both the amplifier and oscillator. Also, in the preferred embodiment the seed pulse from the oscillator is stretched in time by multiplicative factors sufficient to ensure that upon amplification, the seed pulse power density remains below the self-focusing threshold of the material through which the pulse is passed. The seed laser pulses are injected into the resonant cavity of the regenerative amplifier so as to provide multiple traversals of the resonant cavity and the gain medium therein, thereby amplifying the pulses. The pulse is recompressed back to some predetermined pulse width of interest to the user; for example, back to the temporal pulse width that is limited by the spectral bandwidth of the output pulse.

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First Claim