Haowei Chen

We demonstrate an all-polarization-maintaining (PM) ytterbium (Yb)-doped fiber laser with a figure-of-9 structure to generate mode-locked pulses with high single pulse energy and high repetition frequency. By exploiting the nonlinear amplifying loop mirror, a stably self-started mode-locking is achieved with a spectrum bandwidth of 13 nm and a pulse duration of 4.53 ps. The fundamental frequency is 97.966 MHz at the maximum output power of 143 mW in single pulse mode-locked operation, corresponding to the single pulse energy is 1.46 nJ. The output pulses maintain both high repetition frequency and high single-pulse energy. This laser oscillator can be an ideal seed source for applications such as high-energy amplifiers.

We demonstrate a stable narrow linewidth single-frequency erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) operating at 1.6 µm. A Fabry–Perot fiber Bragg grating and two cascaded subrings are incorporated in the main ring cavity to achieve single-frequency operation. The experimentally measured optical signal-to-noise ratio is greater than 73 dB. Furthermore, the linewidth of the EDFL is measured to be about 480 Hz by the self-built short-delayed self-heterodyne interferometry device. The laser shows superior stability, with no mode-hopping during the 60-min observation period. The proposed EDFL provides a new experimental idea for realizing a single-frequency fiber laser in the L-band.

We report a single-wavelength tunable mode-locked fiber laser. The single wavelength can be tuned from 1537.49 nm to 1608.06 nm by introducing a Sagnac loop filter. As far as we know, this is the widest single-wavelength tuning range achieved in an erbium-doped mode-locked all-fiber laser based on nonlinear amplifying loop mirror (NALM). The laser’s pulse width changes from 549 fs to 808 fs throughout the tuning process, the maximum average output power is 5.72 mW, and the single-pulse energy is 0.34 nJ at a central wavelength of 1556.53 nm. This laser source can serve as an efficient tool for applications that require a broad tunability range. The combination of femtosecond pulses and extensive wavelength tuning capabilities makes this laser system highly valuable in fields such as fiber optic communications, spectroscopy, sensing, and other applications that benefit from ultrafast and tunable laser sources.

A continuous wave (CW) ultra-narrow linewidth single-longitudinal mode (SLM) ytterbium-doped fiber laser (YDFL) based on narrowband fiber Bragg grating (NB-FBG) and double-ring passive subcavity (DR-PS) was studied. The filtering characteristics of the double-ring passive subcavity are analyzed theoretically, and it is used as a high-precision mode filter to eliminate the dense longitudinal mode and mode hopping of YDFL and ensure that the laser operates in the SLM state. Experimental results show that the laser has a central wavelength of 1030.052 nm at room temperature, an optical signal-to-noise ratio of up to 73 dB, and an ultra-narrow linewidth of 355 Hz. In addition, we measured the short-term and long-term stability of the laser, with wavelength and power fluctuations of less than 0.008 nm and 0.19 dB, respectively, over 120 min. As a result, we obtain SLM YDFL with high stability, ultra-narrow linewidth, and a high optical signal-to-noise ratio.