Highly Efficient Self-Starting Femtosecond Cr:Forsterite Laser

We report a highly efficient and high power self-starting femtosecond Cr:forsterite laser pumped by a 1064-nm Yb doped fibre laser. Five chirped mirrors are used to compensate for the intra-cavity group-delay dispersion, and the mode-locking is initiated by a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM). Under pump power of 7.9 W, stable femtosecond laser pulses with average power of 760mW are obtained, yielding a pump power slope efficiency of 12.3%. The measured pulse duration and spectral bandwidth (FWHM) are 46 fs and 45nm; the repetition rate is 82 MHz.