Mode-locked, long-cavity, erbium fiber lasers with subsequent soliton-like compression

Abstract

Erbium fiber lasers are described that have cavity lengths of 20-5000 m and are mode-locked at the fundamental cavity frequency using an integrated-optic intensity modulator driven by a novel pulse generator. Resulting optical pulses at 1536 nm were recorded with a synchroscan streak camera and show durations of 10-80 ps with peak powers over 6 W. The shorter cavities yield nearly transform-limited pulses, which are narrowed by solitonlike compression to approximately 5 ps after propagation through an external 14 km fiber.<>