Abstract
We implemented a single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT)-based saturable absorber (SA) that evanescently interacts with light on a side-polished polarization-maintaining fiber (PMF) platform. A high-quality SWCNT/polymer composite was spin-coated onto a side-polished PMF embedded in a quartz block, where the slow optical birefringence axis of the PMF was perpendicular to the polished surface. The fabricated in-line SA had an insertion loss of –1.5 dB with a modulation depth of 0.5% for the polarization direction associated with the transvers magnetic mode. An all-PMF laser was built using the fabricated in-line SA to demonstrate self-starting, turn-key operation of Er-doped, all-fiber lasers delivering stable scalar soliton pulses. The measured 3-dB spectral bandwidth and pulse duration of the laser output were 5.1 nm and 510 fs, respectively, resulting in a time-bandwidth product of 0.320. We examined the polarization state of the soliton fiber laser output and found that the laser stably generated linearly polarized ultrashort pulses with a polarization extinction ratio of –18.4 dB.
© 2016 IEEE
PDF Article
More Like This
Cited By
You do not have subscription access to this journal. Cited by links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.
Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription