Spatio-temporal nonlinear dynamics in a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser

Summary form only given. We present results of a study of nonlinear dynamics in a cw-pumped, Kerr-lens mode-locked (KLM) laser with gain aperturing. Previous to this work, the only measurements of nonlinear dynamics in ultrafast laser systems have been performed in additive pulse modelocked (APM) systems. These revealed a variety of interesting dynamics, however the APM's reliance on interferometric stability severely limited comparison between theory and experiment. In contrast, KLM mode-locking in Ti:sapphire is extremely robust. This has allowed us to perform the first, to our knowledge, detailed measurements of nonlinear dynamics in any femtosecond laser system. We have observed period two, period three, and higher quasi-periodic dynamics in the laser pulse trains, and studied these dynamics as functions of cavity configuration, nonlinearity, and dispersion.