Mode-locking schemes for fiber lasers using auxiliary cavities

Abstract

We explore the effect of auxiliary cavities on various schemes used in modeling fiber laser systems having a main cavity and an auxiliary. These include the effects of incorporating a) passive elements and b) active elements in the auxiliary cavity for actively modelocked, passively modelocked, as well as Raman fiber lasers. The focus is on the enhancement of laser performance including stability, pulse compression and pulse repetition rate. The study shows that incorporating external cavity greatly enhances the operating range as well as performance of fiber laser systems. Pulse widths ranging from femtosecond to picoseconds (20fs to 20ps) have been reported, pulse repetition rates from kilohertz to gigahertz (40KHz to 40GHz), and noise reduction and instability reduction (30 to 140 dBc/Hz) have been reported. In addition incorporating auxiliary cavity allows for design flexibility using cavity dynamics, parametric control, nonlinear effects, pulse shaping, gain switching, and noise dynamics.