High Repetition Rate Ti:Sapphire Laser Mode-Locked by InP Quantum-Dot Saturable Absorber

We report the first demonstration of a Ti:sapphire laser mode-locked with a quantum-dot mode-locker (QDM) at repetition rates up to 1.77 GHz with 8-ps pulse duration and 400-mW average output power. So far, with quantum-well-based mode-lockers, a repetition rate of only up to 300 MHz has been achievable in our experiments. We show that QDM can support mode-locking in a wide range of repetition rates from 100 MHz to 1.8 GHz.