Invited paper All-solid-state cavity-dumped sub-5-fs laser

Abstract.We discuss in detail a compact all-solid-state laser delivering sub-5-fs, 2-MW pulses at repetition rates up to 1 MHz. The shortest pulse generated thus far measures only 4:6 fs. The laser system employed is based on a cavity-dumped Ti:sapphire oscillator whose output is chirped in a single-mode fiber. The resulting white-light continuum is compressed in a novel high-throughput prism chirped-mirror Gires–Tournois interferometer pulse compressor. The tem-poral and spectral phase of the sub-5-fs pulses are deduced from the collinear fringe-resolved autocorrelation and optical spectrum. The derived pulse shape agrees well with the one retrieved from the measured group delay of the continuum and calculated characteristics of the pulse compressor. PACS: 42.65.Re; 42.30.Rx; 42.81.-I Ever since pulsed lasers were invented there has been a rac