Ultrashort pulse generation with the Ti:sapphire laser

Summary form only given. We have generated the shortest pulses to date directly from a KLM Ti:sapphire laser, with a 5.5 fs pulsewidth at 100 MHz repetition rate. This corresponds to a spectral width extending from 650 to over 1000 nm. The demonstrated spectrum at high repetition rates obtained from this source enables many applications including broadband and multiwavelength femtosecond spectroscopy, spread spectrum and WDM systems applications, as well as optical coherence tomography with sub-2 micron resolution.