Fe2O3-SiO2 nanocomposite film-induced high nonlinear effect for multiwavelength mode-locked generation in ytterbium-doped fiber laser

Abstract

In this work, the possibility of a multiwavelength mode-locked fiber laser generation based on Four-Wave Mixing (FWM) induced by Fe2O3-SiO2 nanocomposite material is investigated for the first time. A multiwavelength mode-locked pulses fiber laser are generated from Ytterbium–doped fiber laser (YDFL) due to the combined action of high nonlinear absorption and high refractive coefficients of Fe2O3-SiO2 nanocomposite incorporated inside YDFL ring cavity. Up to more than 20 lasing lines in the 1040–1070 nm band with an equally lines separation of ~0.6 nm have been observed by just simple variation of passive modulation of the state of the polarization and the pump power altogether. Moreover, a passively mode-locked operation of YDFL laser has been realized with repetition rate of 18.75 MHz and pulse width of 10 ps. The proposed laser offers excellent long-standing stability with the average amount of optical signal/noise ratio of more than 41 dBm. Our study may pave a novel technique to generate multiwavelength lasing from fiber laser with the assistance by nanocomposite disordered media at low threshold pumping.