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Passive harmonic mode-locking in soliton fibre lasers

Passive harmonic mode-locking in soliton fibre lasers
Passive harmonic mode-locking in soliton fibre lasers
We present an experimental and theoretical study of passively mode-locked fibre soliton lasers. Our theoretical analysis based on perturbation theory describes the soliton interactions which occur when pulse bunches form. Our results indicate that the non-soliton component emitted by the propagating solitons causes small changes of the central frequency of individual solitons and the strength and sign of this interaction between the soliton and dispersive waves depends on their mutual phase as well as on the soliton position within the soliton bunch. For a certain phase difference between the solitons and non-soliton component the interaction force becomes repulsive for all solitons within a soliton bunch and results in an almost uniform distribution of the pulses inside the laser cavity. The pulses are then locked in their temporal positions by acoustic effects. We also demonstrate that the laser performance could be further improved by the use of a MQW saturable absorber in combination with the nonlinear amplifying loop mirror. In this instance the MQW sample acts not only as a fast saturable absorber but also as a passive phase modulator. We experimentally demonstrate that such a laser is capable of generating 500 fs pulses at repetition rates exceeding 2 GHz.
0740-3224
144-154
Grudinin, A.B.
8f50b467-7d60-46db-b29d-a89b1059a1d8
Gray, S.
2cb8a74c-b622-4dff-ade8-75cc06180be3
Grudinin, A.B.
8f50b467-7d60-46db-b29d-a89b1059a1d8
Gray, S.
2cb8a74c-b622-4dff-ade8-75cc06180be3

Grudinin, A.B. and Gray, S. (1997) Passive harmonic mode-locking in soliton fibre lasers. Journal of the Optical Society of America B, 14 (1), 144-154. (doi:10.1364/JOSAB.14.000144).

Record type: Article

Abstract

We present an experimental and theoretical study of passively mode-locked fibre soliton lasers. Our theoretical analysis based on perturbation theory describes the soliton interactions which occur when pulse bunches form. Our results indicate that the non-soliton component emitted by the propagating solitons causes small changes of the central frequency of individual solitons and the strength and sign of this interaction between the soliton and dispersive waves depends on their mutual phase as well as on the soliton position within the soliton bunch. For a certain phase difference between the solitons and non-soliton component the interaction force becomes repulsive for all solitons within a soliton bunch and results in an almost uniform distribution of the pulses inside the laser cavity. The pulses are then locked in their temporal positions by acoustic effects. We also demonstrate that the laser performance could be further improved by the use of a MQW saturable absorber in combination with the nonlinear amplifying loop mirror. In this instance the MQW sample acts not only as a fast saturable absorber but also as a passive phase modulator. We experimentally demonstrate that such a laser is capable of generating 500 fs pulses at repetition rates exceeding 2 GHz.

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Published date: 1997

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Local EPrints ID: 78097
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/78097
ISSN: 0740-3224
PURE UUID: 464f8140-5da5-47da-9946-6cf78f23178b

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Date deposited: 11 Mar 2010
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 00:06

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Author: A.B. Grudinin
Author: S. Gray

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