Custom Crystals for Doubling Ultrafast Ti:Sapphire Pulses
In the years since their first demonstration at MIT Lincoln Labs in 1982, mode-locked Ti:Sapphire oscillators have become almost ubiquitous. The ultrashort, tunable output pulses from these lasers permit investigation of previously extremely difficult to study phenomena. Typical output from these lasers ranges from red to near infrared, yet for many applications which require high peak powers and ultrashort pulses, shorter wavelengths are desirable. Harmonic generation using nonlinear optical crystals has become one of the most popular methods of reaching these wavelengths.