Broadband fast semiconductor saturable absorber

Kerr lens mode-locked (KLM) solid-state lasers are typically not self-starting. We address this problem by introducing a broadband semiconductor saturable absorber that could be used as a tunable, all-solid-state, passive starting mechanism. We extend the wavelength tunability of a semiconductor saturable absorber to more than 100 nm using a band-gap-engineered low-temperature molecular-beam-epitaxy (MBE)-grown bulk AlGaAs semiconductor saturable absorber in which the absorption edge of the saturable absorber has been artificially broadened by continuously reducing the Al concentration during the MBE growth. We demonstrate its tunability and its feasibility as a starting mechanism for KLM with a picosecond resonant passive mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser. The extension to femtosecond KLM lasers has been discussed previously.