Generation of sub-50fs soliton pulses from a mode-locked Yb,Na:CNGG disordered crystal laser

We experimentally demonstrated a diode-pumped sub-50 fs Yb,Na:CNGG disordered crystal laser. Pumped by a 980 nm distributed Bragg-reflector tapered diode laser and passively mode-locked with a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM), soliton pulses as short as 62 fs and 45 fs were obtained without and with external compression, respectively. The ultrashort pulses had a repetition rate of ~104 MHz at the central wavelength of 1061 nm. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of sub-50 fs pulses from the Yb³⁺-doped CNGG type disordered crystal lasers.