Widely tunable Tm-doped mode-locked all-fiber laser.

Zhiyu Yan,Zhiyu Yan,Qi Jie Wang,Biao Sun,Jiaqi Luo,Jiaqi Luo,Ying Zhang,Perry Ping Shum,Xiaohui Li,Xiaohui Li,Xia Yu

doi:10.1038/srep27245

Abstract

We demonstrated a widely tunable Tm-doped mode-locked all-fiber laser, with the widest tunable range of 136 nm, from 1842 to 1978 nm. Nonlinear polarization evolution (NPE) technique is employed to enable mode-locking and the wavelength-tunable operation. The widely tunable range attributes to the NPE-induced transmission modulation and bidirectional pumping mechanism. Such kind of tunable mode-locked laser can find various applications in optical communications, spectroscopy, time-resolved measurement, and among others.

Highlights

We demonstrated a widely tunable Tm-doped mode-locked all-fiber laser, with the widest tunable range of 136 nm, from 1842 to 1978 nm
Achieving widely tunable fiber lasers is of much interest because the emission wavelength can be tuned within a wide spectral range, which is useful for applications in spectroscopy, optical communication, optical instrument and system diagnostics, etc
Most tunable mode-locked fiber lasers are in the 1 μmand 1.5 μmregime and a few in 2 μm regime, in which Tm- or Ho-doped fiber is used as the gain medium[4,5,6,7,8,9,10]

Summary

Introduction

We demonstrated a widely tunable Tm-doped mode-locked all-fiber laser, with the widest tunable range of 136 nm, from 1842 to 1978 nm. The widely tunable range attributes to the NPE-induced transmission modulation and bidirectional pumping mechanism Such kind of tunable mode-locked laser can find various applications in optical communications, spectroscopy, time-resolved measurement, and among others. Achieving widely tunable fiber lasers is of much interest because the emission wavelength can be tuned within a wide spectral range, which is useful for applications in spectroscopy, optical communication, optical instrument and system diagnostics, etc. In Nelson’s work[28], the tunable range is as wide as 104 nm, from 1798 to 1902 nm, with a Tm-doped fiber and an NPE cavity structure It keeps the widest tunable range for mode-locked fiber laser for the time being, some free-space components were used in the cavity. The cavity is in an all-fiber structure, and the tunable range is the widest in such kind of laser to the best of our knowledge

Methods

Results

Conclusion