We present the first all-polarization-maintaining Ytterbium-doped fiber laser oscillator mode-locked through a nonlinear optical loop mirror that works in a dispersion-managed dissipative soliton regime. Using a chirped fiber Bragg grating, we built a cavity of a net negative dispersion delivering ultrashort 2.3 nJ pulses at a repetition rate of 34.08 MHz. Chirped 3.96 ps pulses from the oscillator are recompressible down to 98 fs with a high temporal Strehl ratio.
In this work, we present an all-polarization-maintaining, all-large-mode-area fiber laser oscillator passively mode-locked using a nonlinear optical loop mirror. The ytterbium-doped system, working in a Raman-free regime, operates at a central wavelength of 1.03 μ;m. The oscillator emits 12 nJ pulses at a repetition rate of 7.56 MHz. Positively chirped pulses from an all-normal-dispersion cavity can be externally compressed to the duration of 250 fs.
This work focuses on practical analysis of the Nonlinear Optical Loop Mirror (NOLM). This all-fiber device serves as a saturable absorbers for passive mode-locking in ultrashort pulse generation. It has a great potential for further development as it’s made in all fiber technology, and can be easily adapted to custom system.
We investigate and provide experimental results as well as characteristics of NOLM’s in several different setups. The all-fiber laser system used for testing produced femtosecond pulses with a positive chirp. We present reflection as a function of input power and as a function of the coupler’s coupling. Also, relevant spectral characteristics are shown. These results may be useful in further development of fiber laser systems and other applications.
In this paper we report an all-PM-fiber laser amplifier system seeded by an all-normal-dispersion oscillator mode-locked with a Nonlinear Optical Loop Mirror (NOLM). The presented all-normal-dispersion cavity works in a dissipative soliton regime and delivers highly-chirped, high energy pulses above 2.5 nJ with full width at half maximum below 200 fs. The ultrafast oscillator followed by the all-PM-fiber amplifying stage delivered pulses with the energy of 42.5 nJ and time duration below 190 fs. The electrical field of optical pulses from the system was reconstructed using the SPIDER technique. The influence of nonlinear processes on the pulse temporal envelope was investigated.
Ultrafast all-fiber oscillators are currently one of the most rapidly developing laser technologies. Many advantages like: environmental stability, low sensitivity to misalignment, excellent beam quality (intrinsic single transverse mode operation), high energy and an excellent active medium efficiency make them the lasers of choice for a variety of applications. In this paper the designs of all-fiber all-normal dispersion femtosecond lasers are described. Due to large positive chirp, the pulses inside the cavity are highly stretched in time and they can achieve higher energies with the same peak power as shorter pulses. High insensitivity to mechanical perturbations or temperature drift is another highly valued property of presented configurations. Two of reported lasers are extremely stable due to the fact that their cavities are built entirely of polarization maintaining fibers and optical elements. We used highly Yb3+ ions doped fibers as an active medium pumped by a fiber coupled 976 nm laser diode. The central wavelength of our laser oscillators was 1030 nm. Three methods of passive mode-locking in all-fiber cavities were studied. In particular, the designs with Nonlinear Polarization Evolution (NPE), Nonlinear Optical Loop Mirror (NOLM) and Nonlinear Amplifying Loop Mirror (NALM) as artificial saturable absorbers were investigated. The most attention was paid to all-PM-fiber configurations. We present two self-starting, high energy, all-fiber configurations: one delivering pulses with energy of 4.3 nJ and dechirped pulse duration of 150 fs based on the NALM and another with a 6.8 nJ, 390 fs pulses in configuration with the NOLM. The influence of different artificial saturable absorber on output pulse characteristics were studied and analyzed.
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