Mode-locked fiber laser using the Sagnac interferometer and the nonlinear polarization rotation

Abstract

In figure-eight lasers (F8L) mode locking is achieved through a nonlinear fiber amplifier loop mirror (NALM) or an asymmetrical nonlinear optical loop mirror (NOLM). Recently, we have theoretically shown that the symmetrical NOLM with a twisted fiber is useful for passive mode locking of fiber lasers. In this work we experimentally demonstrate the operation of a F8L based on the symmetrical NOLM with a twisted low-birefringence fiber in the loop. The modelocking operation is achieved by nonlinear polarization rotation. We found that the counter-propagating beams accumulate a differential nonlinear phase shift when they have different As (where As is the Stokes parameter). At the input NOLM, we used a polarizer controller to adjust the clockwise beam to be circularly polarized, As=1. In the loop of the NOLM, we used a quarter-wave retarder to transform the counter-clockwise beam to linear polarization, As=0. The quarter-wave retarder was the only element that we adjust to achieve modelocking. The pulse repetition frequency was 0.8 MHz. The FWHM of the autocorrelation function was 0.7 ps. We used a pump power of 80 mW to get the modelocking operation. The modelocked laser ran in stable operation for hours. Even in this first experiments the laser shown several advantages. The adjustment procedure was straightforward. The laser shows stable operation and exhibits high pulse energy. We achieved stable generation of subpicosecond pulses with milliwatts of average output power.