High-energy laser pulse with a submegahertz repetition rate from a passively mode-locked fiber laser

Opt Lett. 2009 May 1;34(9):1432-4. doi: 10.1364/ol.34.001432.

Abstract

We demonstrate an ultralong cavity, all-fiber, all-normal-dispersion Yb-doped fiber laser that is passively mode locked by a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM). Without any discrete dispersion-compensation components or conventional spectral filters, the SESAM works together with the strongly chirped pulse and the nonlinearity induced spectrum broadening to perform a filtering-equivalent function, thus stabilizing the mode locking. The laser generates 4.3 nJ stable mode-locked pulses with a 397 kHz fundamental repetition rate at a 1068 nm central wavelength.

MeSH terms

  • Absorption
  • Lasers*
  • Optical Phenomena
  • Semiconductors