(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2007) Xiong, Yihan; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: John L. Carlsten
In this thesis, a theory is first presented for a far-off resonance mode-locked Raman laser in H2 with high finesse cavity enhancement. The theoretical derivation for the mode-locked Raman laser is based on semiclasscial laser theory and time-dependent continuous wave (CW) Raman theory. Numerically calculated results, including the intracavity fields' amplitude and phase evolution and output Stokes power versus input pump power are discussed in three different regimes depending on the relationship between the coherence dephasing rate and the repetition rate of the mode-locked pump laser. Then experimentally, first an actively mode-locked external-cavity diode laser (ML-ECDL) was built along with a demonstration of how to frequency lock all the longitudinal modes from the ML-ECDL to a high finesse cavity. Then a tapered amplifier diode system was designed to increase the ML-ECDL power.
