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Nonlinearly limited saturable-absorber mode locking of an erbium fiber laser

1999; Optica Publishing Group; Volume: 24; Issue: 15 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1364/ol.24.001074

1539-4794

Min Jiang, G. Sucha, M. E. Fermann, J. Jiménez, D. Harter, M. Dagenais, S. Fox, Yue Hu,

Photonic Crystal and Fiber Optics

We describe an erbium fiber laser that is passively mode locked by a novel, precision antireflection-coated semiconductor saturable-absorber mirror that incorporates an additional two-photon absorber. It is shown that passive mode locking evolves from a Q-switching instability. The results are achieved by use of saturable absorbers that provide a large (15%) nonlinear (saturable) loss. Exploiting two-photon absorption can substantially reduce the peak power of the Q-switched pulses, which results in improved reliability of the laser. Moreover, two-photon absorption can be used to produce an optimal stability range for saturable-absorber mode locking.