Picosecond pulses from an Er/Yb waveguide laser passively mode-locked with a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror

Abstract

Summary form only given. Semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors have been used to passively mode-lock a variety of solid state and fiber lasers. Fiber lasers typically operate at low fundamental repetition rates because of Er-doping density limits in fiber. A mode-locked fiber laser based on an Er/Yb codoped waveguide amplifier has been demonstrated, although with a P-APM mode-locking mechanism that is not scalable to short cavity lengths. Here, a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror is used for the first time to produce pulses as short as 1 ps at repetition rates of 25-100 MHz from a mode-locked Er/Yb waveguide laser in a linear cavity configuration that is scalable to very high repetition rates.