A mode locked as a seed source for a solid state regenerative amplifier system is disclosed. The system includes components for forming an external cavity laser with a semiconductor amplifier, exciting and mode locking the cavity laser to emit optical pulses with a linearly time varying optical frequency, collecting and collimating the optical pulses, isolating the optical pulses and amplifying the optical pulses for a selected application. The selected applications include but are not limited to medical imaging, fuel diagnostics, ultrafast spectroscopic measurements, network synchronization, distributed optical clock network, electro-optic sampling, timing Jitter reduction, a source for inducing nonlinear optical effects, and optical time domain relectometry. A mount mechanism support for an optic system is also disclosed. The mount support includes an optic component such as a semiconductor laser diode, a semiconductor optical amplifier, and a fiber optical amplifier as well as mounts for the optic component. The mount further includes a stud for supporting the optic component, cooling and heat-sinking elements for the component, and an isolator for thermally isolating and separating the mounts from the elements. The thermal isolator includes material selected from teflon and double-panel glass. The mounts can further include a vertical mounting block with one side attached to the isolator and a second mounting block positioned perpendicular to and supporting the vertical mounting block.