Developing high energy mode-locked fiber laser at 2 micron

TL;DR

This paper presents a theoretical and experimental study on scaling high-energy mode-locked fiber lasers at 2 microns, achieving over 4.9 nJ pulse energy with stable dissipative solitons, advancing ultrafast laser technology.

Contribution

The study introduces a gain fiber shortening strategy based on simulations to enhance pulse energy at 2 μm, demonstrating experimental realization of high-energy dissipative solitons.

Findings

Simulations predict over 10 nJ pulse energy for 2 μm dissipative solitons.

Experimentally achieved 4.9 nJ pulse energy with 579 fs duration.

Shortening gain fiber length is effective for energy scaling at 2 μm.

Abstract

While dissipative soliton operation has successfully improved the pulse energy of 1 {\mu}m and 1.5 {\mu}m fiber lasers to tens of nanojoules, it is still hard to scale the pulse energy of dissipative solitons at 2 {\mu}m due to the anomalous dispersion of the gain fiber. Based on theoretical simulation, we analyze intracavity dynamics of dissipative solitons (DSs) and propose that gain fiber should be condensed to short length in order to scale the pulse energy of 2 {\mu}m DSs. The simulation predicts pulse energy of over 10 nJ for 2 {\mu}m dissipative solitons, comparable to that achieved in the 1 {\mu}m and 1.5 {\mu}m regimes. Experimental operation generates stable 2 {\mu}m DSs from a linear cavity with pulse energy of 4.9 nJ and dechirped pulse duration of 579 fs. These results advance our understanding of mode-locked fiber laser at different wavelengths and lay an important step in achieving high energy ultrafast laser pulses from anomalous dispersion gain media at 2 {\mu}m.