Using two high-brightness laser diodes as pump sources, brightness-maintaining focusing optics, and an antiresonant Fabry–Perot saturable absorber (A-FPSA) 1, 2 as a low-loss saturable absorber, we obtained self-starting 45-fs pulses (Fig, 1) with 60 mW of average power mode locked. This demonstrates what is to our knowledge the shortest pulse ever obtained from a diode-pumped Cr: LiSAF laser. This laser has half the pulse width and a greater output power then was achieved in our previously published diode-pumped Cr: LiSAF work. 3 The shortest-ever-demonstrated Cr: LiSAF laser (33 fs) used a diffraction-limited pump source. 4