ABSTRACT
We have studied the ultrafast saturation behavior of a high-density well-aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes saturable absorber (HDWA-SWCNT SA), obtained by a high-pressure and high-temperature treatment of commercially available single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and related it to femtosecond erbium-doped fiber laser performance. We have observed the polarization dependence of a nonlinear optical saturation, along with a low saturation energy level of <1 fJ, limited to the detector threshold used, and the ultrafast response time of <250 fs, while the modulation depth was approximately 12%. We have obtained the generation of ultrashort stretched pulses with a low mode-locking launching threshold of ~100 mW and an average output power of 12.5 mW in an erbium-doped ring laser with the hybrid mode-locking of a VDVA-SWNT SA in combination with the effects of nonlinear polarization evolution. Dechirped pulses with a duration of 180 fs were generated, with a repetition rate of about 42.22 MHz. The average output power standard deviation was about 0.06% RMS during 3 h of measurement.
ABSTRACT
We report on ultra-short stretched pulse generation in an all-fiber erbium-doped ring laser with a highly-nonlinear germanosilicate fiber inside the resonator with a slightly positive net-cavity group velocity dispersion (GVD). Stable 84 fs pulses were obtained with a 12 MHz repetition rate at a central wavelength of 1560 nm with a 48.1 nm spectral pulse width (full width at half maximum, FWHM) and 30 mW average output power; this corresponds to the 29.7 kW maximum peak power and 2.5 nJ pulse energy obtained immediately from the oscillator.