High Repetition-Rate Mode-Locked Fiber-Ring Laser Based on Polarization-Maintaining Photonic Crystal Fiber

Abstract

We demonstrate harmonically mode-locked, dispersion-managed, polarization-maintaining erbium fiber lasers that use photonic crystal fiber (PCF) for nonlinear pulse compression. The high nonlinearity and large anomalous dispersion of the PCF resulted in significant reduction in the cavity length and increased long-term stability. The laser cavity, only 36-m-long, yielded stable picosecond pulses at 10- and 40-GHz repetition rates, with supermode noise suppression of over 60dB.