Abstract

Rare-earth doped fibre lasers had demonstrated a large variety of dynamical behaviors including static and dynamic polarization effects,¹ antiphase and chaotic dynamics in autonomous² or modulated systems.³ In this context, erbium-doped fibre laser (EDFL) takes a privileged place due to its spontaneous different dynamical behaviors.^4,5 Indeed, EDFL operates spontaneously in self-pulsing, sinusoidal, or CW regimes. These dynamical behaviors have been experimentally⁴ and theoretically⁵ attributed to the existence of ion clusters (ion pairs are sufficient) which act as a saturable absorber. In this communication we report the experimental evidence of a quasi-periodic route to chaos in self-pulsing EDFL operating simultaneously at 1.550 μm and 1.536 μm.

© 1994 IEEE