Abstract

A figure-eight fiber laser (F8L) has been considered as a potential source of ultrashort pulses for a number of applications [1-2] since it is able to generate sub-picosecond pulses [2-3] in a simple configuration. In this paper, for the first time we report a high power, stable F8L with a specifically designed FBG to control both the repetition rate and the spectral bandwidth of the output pulses (Fig. 1). A specially designed FBG connected to the output port P1 shapes the spectrum of the laser output and provides a wavelength dependent feedback to the main F8L cavity. The energy, which is partially reflected by the FBG and circulates along the cavity, acts as a seed signal for a pulse train with a higher repetition rate being an integer multiple of the fundamental repetition rate.

© 2003 Optical Society of America