Operating principle, saturable loss, and self-frequency shift in Kerr-shift mode-locked lasers

The operating principle of a recently demonstrated new Kerr-induced ultrashort-pulse-generation technique called Kerr-shift mode locking is analyzed. It is shown that in Kerr-shift mode-locked lasers an intensity-dependent red shift of the central laser frequency is caused by the combined action of the self-phase modulation that is due to the nonlinear index laser host medium and the Lorentzian-shaped profile of the homogeneously broadened gain. The introduction of a long-pass wavelength f ilter (knife-edge) transforms this intensity-dependent frequency shift into fast self-amplitude modulation (SAM), which is accompanied by an additional linear red shift of the central laser frequency. The SAM parameter and the linear frequency shift are calculated and compared with the experimental results.