Invited paper: Short pulse generation in mid-IR fiber lasers

Abstract

Mode-locked fiber lasers emitting short pulses of light at wavelengths of 2μm and longer are reviewed. Rare-earth doped silica and fluoride fiber lasers operating in the mode-locked regime in the mid-IR (2–5μm) have attracted attention due to their usefulness to spectroscopy, nonlinear optics, laser surgery, remote sensing and ranging to name a few. While silica fiber lasers are fundamentally limited to emission wavelengths below 2.2μm, fluoride fiber lasers can reach to nearly 4μm. The relative infancy of fluoride fibers as compared to silica fibers means the field has work to do to translate the mode-locking techniques to systems beyond 2μm. However, with the recent demonstration of a stable, mode-locked 3μm fiber laser, the possibility of achieving high performance 3μm class mode-locked fiber lasers looks promising.