Repetition frequency scaling of an all-polarization maintaining erbium-doped mode-locked fiber laser based on carbon nanotubes saturable absorber

摘要

We demonstrate an all-polarization maintaining (PM), mode-locked erbium (Er)-doped fiber laser based on a carbon nanotubes (CNT) saturable absorber (SA). The laser resonator was maximally simplified by using only one passive hybrid component and a pair of fiber connectors with deposited CNTs. The repetition frequency (F_(rep)) of such a cost-effective and self-starting mode-locked laser was scaled from 54.3 MHz to 358.6 MHz. The highest F_(rep) was obtained when the total cavity length was shortened to 57 cm. The laser allows ultrashort pulse generation with the duration ranging from 240 fs to 550 fs. Because the laser components were based on PM fibers the laser was immune to the external perturbations and generated laniary polarized light with the degree of polarization (DOP) of 98.7%.