Kerr-lens mode-locking (KLM) is a powerful technique for femtosecond pulse generation in solid-state lasers. It involves the delicate interplay between the spatial and temporal profiles of the beam, yet most analyses of KLM treat only one of them, neglecting the intricate dynamics between them. We present a full spatio-temporal simulation of KLM, where both the spatial and temporal profiles are calculated in time and directly affect each other.
Our analysis corroborates previous analyses and approximations and gives a deeper understanding of the characterization of KLM lasers and related experimental results.