Abstract

Passively mode-locked fiber lasers cladding pumped by broad-area diode-laser arrays are described. With a dispersion-compenstated erbium–ytterbium fiber oscillator, 200-fs pulses with pulse energies up to 100 pJ are generated at a wavelength of 1560 nm. In a highly dispersive cavity, pulse widths of 3 ps with pulse energies up to 1 nJ are obtained. A saturable absorber is used for pulse startup, whereas nonlinear polarization evolution is exploited for steady-state pulse shaping. An environmentally stable design is ensured by use of a compensation scheme for linear polarization drifts in the cavity.

© 1996 Optical Society of America

Cladding-pumped passive harmonically mode-locked fiber laser

M. E. Fermann and J. D. Minelly
Opt. Lett. 21(13) 970-972 (1996)

190-fs passively mode-locked thulium fiber laser with a low threshold

R. C. Sharp, D. E. Spock, N. Pan, and J. Elliot
Opt. Lett. 21(12) 881-883 (1996)

Femtosecond pulse amplification in cladding-pumped fibers

J. D. Minelly, A. Galvanauskas, M. E. Fermann, D. Harter, J. E. Caplen, Z. J. Chen, and D. N. Payne
Opt. Lett. 20(17) 1797-1799 (1995)

Generation of pulses shorter than 200 fs from a passively mode-locked Er fiber laser

M. E. Fermann, M. J. Andrejco, Y. Silberberg, and A. M. Weiner
Opt. Lett. 18(1) 48-50 (1993)

Self-starting Kerr-lens mode-locked femtosecond Cr⁴⁺:YAG and picosecond Pr³⁺:YLF solid-state lasers

Y. P. Tong, J. M. Sutherland, P. M. W. French, J. R. Taylor, A. V. Shestakov, and B. H. T. Chai
Opt. Lett. 21(9) 644-646 (1996)