Abstract

An all-polarization-maintaining (PM) figure-9 mode-locked Tm-doped fiber laser that leverages a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror (NALM) incorporated with a chirped fiber Bragg grating (CFBG) for dispersion management is experimentally demonstrated. A dual output is obtained at the transmission and reflection arm of the NLAM loop, with a center wavelength of 1950 nm and 3 dB bandwidth of, respectively, 8.6 nm and 30 nm. The corresponding pulse repetition rate is 30.6 MHz with an average power of, respectively, 6.5 mW and 2 mW for the two outputted pulses. By utilizing an extra-cavity amplification, the output of the transmission arm experiences nonlinear pulse evolution and its pulse width is directly compressed to 123 fs (almost approaches the calculated Fourier transform limited duration of 114 fs), along with the scaling of the average power to 80 mW. Moreover, through characterizing the noise properties of the laser, it is found that the phase noise, intensity noise and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the fundamental repetition frequency at the transmission arm manifests a better performance than at the reflection arm. With an integration frequency of [3 kHz, 1 MHz], an optimal timing jitter and relative intensity noise of 164 fs and 0.006% are, respectively, obtained. The noise suppression mechanism is attributed to the interaction between the transmission curve of the NALM and the pulse peak power fluctuations, as well as the dispersion management of the cavity. In addition, the stable operation of the laser is further verified by monitoring the long-term stability.

Stable noise-like pulse generation from a NALM-based all-PM Tm-doped fiber laser

Bo Ren, Can Li, Tao Wang, Kun Guo, and Pu Zhou
Opt. Express 30(15) 26464-26471 (2022)

All-polarization-maintaining, stretched-pulse Tm-doped fiber laser, mode-locked by a graphene saturable absorber

Jarosław Sotor, Jakub Bogusławski, Tadeusz Martynkien, Paweł Mergo, Aleksandra Krajewska, Aleksandra Przewłoka, Włodek StrupiŃski, and Grzegorz SoboŃ
Opt. Lett. 42(8) 1592-1595 (2017)

Investigation of stable pulse mode-locking regimes in a NALM figure-9 Er-doped fiber laser

Shiping Xiong, Daping Luo, Yang Liu, Wenchao Wang, Zejiang Deng, Zhenqiang Tang, Gehui Xie, Lian Zhou, Zhong Zuo, Chenglin Gu, and Wenxue Li
Opt. Express 31(1) 514-527 (2023)

Highly stable Q-switched and mode-locked pulse generation from an all-PM figure-9 fiber laser

Kun Guo, Can Li, Bo Ren, Tao Wang, Jian Wu, Zhichao Luo, Pu Zhou, and Zongfu Jiang
Opt. Express 30(20) 35636-35646 (2022)

Compact all-fiber figure-9 dissipative soliton resonance mode-locked double-clad Er:Yb laser

Karol Krzempek, Jaroslaw Sotor, and Krzysztof Abramski
Opt. Lett. 41(21) 4995-4998 (2016)