First experimental verification of soliton-like pulse-shaping mechanisms in passively mode-locked VECSELs

In this paper, we demonstrate for the first time the detailed experimental verification of this quasi-soliton pulse formation theory in passively mode-locked VECSELs. We show that the achievable pulse duration strongly depends on the group delay dispersion (GDD), and that it is important to provide positive overall intracavity GDD for achieving short pulse durations.