Use of traveling acoustic waves for mode locking in lasers

A new mode-locking method was used in lasers based on the diffraction of light by a traveling ultrasonic wave. We found experimentally that for a cw pumped YAG:Nd³⁺ laser the proposed method can substantially enlarge the mode-locking band and improve the long-term stability and reproducibility of the duration and repetition period of the output optical pulses.