Low-loss broadband semiconductor saturable absorber mirror for mode-locked Ti:sapphire lasers

Abstract We developed a low-loss broadband silver-based semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM) for mode-locked Ti:sapphire lasers. By the insertion of a dielectric layer in between the semiconductor and metal layers, the non-saturable loss of the SESAM was reduced to ∼1%. The experiment demonstrated that such a SESAM offers a sufficiently broad band-width to support sub-10-fs pulses, with a reasonably high output power.