Self-starting passively mode-locked femtosecond Cr/sup 4+/:YAG laser diode pumped by a Yb-fiber

Summary form only given. We report, what is to our knowledge, the first demonstration of the passively mode-locked compact femtosecond Cr:YAG laser that uses a diode-pumped Yb-doped fiber laser. We have designed a highly asymmetric four-mirror cavity Cr:YAG laser, using a saturable Bragg reflector (SBR) as the mode-locking device. The pump source was a 10 W single mode cw Yb-doped fiber laser operating at 1064 nm in a near-diffraction-limited beam. The gain medium was a 20 mm long Brewster-angled Cr:YAG crystal. Operation of this laser at average output powers of 100s mW around 1530 nm should be possible following optimization of the transmission of the output coupler.