TY - JOUR AU - R. Jones AU - Jun Ye AB - By simultaneously controlling repetition and carrier frequencies, one can achieve the phase coherent superposition of a collection of successive pulses from a mode-locked laser. An optical cavity can be used for coherent delay and constructive interference of sequential pulses until a cavity dump is enabled to switch out the amplified pulse. This approach will lead to an effective amplification process through decimation of the original pulse rate while the overall coherence from the oscillator is preserved. Detailed calculations show the limiting effects of intracavity dispersion and indicate that enhancement of sub-100-fs pulses to microjoule energies is experimentally feasible. © 2002 Optical Society of America BT - Optics Letters DA - 2002-10 DO - 10.1364/OL.27.001848 N2 - By simultaneously controlling repetition and carrier frequencies, one can achieve the phase coherent superposition of a collection of successive pulses from a mode-locked laser. An optical cavity can be used for coherent delay and constructive interference of sequential pulses until a cavity dump is enabled to switch out the amplified pulse. This approach will lead to an effective amplification process through decimation of the original pulse rate while the overall coherence from the oscillator is preserved. Detailed calculations show the limiting effects of intracavity dispersion and indicate that enhancement of sub-100-fs pulses to microjoule energies is experimentally feasible. © 2002 Optical Society of America PY - 2002 EP - 1848 T2 - Optics Letters TI - Femtosecond pulse amplification by coherent addition in a passive optical cavity VL - 27 SN - 0146-9592 ER -