A wavelength-tunable mode-locked Yb-doped fiber laser based on nonlinear Kerr beam clean-up effect

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel all-fiber mode-locked laser that achieves wavelength tuning from 1040 nm to 1063 nm using nonlinear Kerr beam clean-up, with ultrashort pulse generation and potential communication system applications.

Contribution

A new wavelength-tunable mode-locked fiber laser utilizing nonlinear Kerr beam clean-up with a tunable band-pass filter effect based on fiber bending.

Findings

Wavelength tunability from 1040 nm to 1063 nm.

Pulse compression to 791 fs.

High signal-to-noise ratio of 75.5 dB.

Abstract

We demonstrate a novel approach to achieve wavelength-tunable ultrashort pulses from an all-fiber mode-locked laser with a saturable absorber based on nonlinear Kerr beam clean-up effect. This saturable absorber was formed by a single-mode fiber spliced to a graded-index multimode fiber, and its tunable band-pass filter effect is studied by a numerical model. By adjusting the bending condition of graded-index multimode fiber, the laser could produce dissipative soliton pulses with their central wavelength tunable from1040 nm to 1063 nm. The pulse width of output laser could be compressed externally to 791 fs, and the signal to noise ratio of its radio frequency spectrum was measured to be 75.5 dB. This work provides a new idea for the design of wavelength-tunable mode-locked laser which can be used as an attractive light source in communication system.