Editing Mode locking (section)

==Practical mode-locked lasers==

In practice, a number of design considerations affect the performance of a mode-locked laser. The most important are the overall [[dispersion (optics)|dispersion]] of the laser's [[optical resonator]], which can be controlled with a [[prism compressor]] or some dispersive mirrors placed in the cavity, and optical [[Nonlinear system|nonlinearities]]. For excessive net [[Group velocity dispersion#Group delay dispersion|group delay dispersion]] (GDD) of the laser cavity, the [[phase (waves)|phase]] of the cavity modes can not be locked over a large bandwidth, and it will be difficult to obtain very short pulses. For a suitable combination of negative (anomalous) net GDD with the [[Kerr effect|Kerr nonlinearity]], [[soliton]]-like interactions may stabilize the mode locking and help to generate shorter pulses. The shortest possible pulse duration is usually accomplished either for zero dispersion (without nonlinearities) or for some slightly negative (anomalous) dispersion (exploiting the soliton mechanism).

The shortest directly produced optical pulses are generally produced by [[Kerr-lens modelocking|Kerr-lens mode-locked]] Ti:sapphire lasers and are around 5&nbsp;femtoseconds long. Alternatively, amplified pulses of a similar duration are created through the compression of longer (e.g. 30&nbsp;fs) pulses by [[self-phase modulation]] in a hollow-core fibre or during filamentation. However, the minimum pulse duration is limited by the period of the carrier frequency (which is about 2.7&nbsp;fs for Ti:sapphire systems); therefore, shorter pulses require moving to shorter wavelengths. Some advanced techniques (involving [[high-harmonic generation]] with amplified femtosecond laser pulses) can be used to produce optical features with durations as short as 100&nbsp;[[attosecond]]s in the [[extreme ultraviolet]] spectral region (i.e. <30&nbsp;nm). Other achievements, important particularly for [[laser applications]], concern the development of mode-locked lasers that can be pumped with [[laser diodes]], can generate very high average output powers (tens of watts) in sub-picosecond pulses, or generate pulse trains with extremely high repetition rates of many GHz.

Pulse durations less than approximately 100&nbsp;fs are too short to be directly measured using [[optoelectronic]] techniques (i.e. [[photodiode]]s), and so indirect methods, such as [[autocorrelation]], [[frequency-resolved optical gating]], [[spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction]], and [[multiphoton intrapulse interference phase scan]] are used.