Harmonically mode-locked, polarization-maintaining, and dispersion-managed erbium fiber ring laser with variable output coupling

Abstract

Actively mode-locked erbium fiber ring lasers (ML-EFRLs) have attracted much interest as sources of transform-limited short pulses for future ultrahigh-speed optical communication. In this work, we have constructed a 10-GHz regeneratively ML-EFRL with a polarization-maintaining dispersion managed cavity. We experimentally show that the stable operation region of the ML-EFRL is extended by increasing the laser output coupling. Furthermore, we carry out a detailed analysis of the ML-EFRL pulse quality.