| An erbium-doped fiber ring laser is actively mode-locked to produce picosecond pulses in the near infrared (1530 nm-1560 nm). The mode-locker is a fast integrated-optic intensity modulator driven by short electrical pulses ({dollar}sim{dollar}100 ps). Subsequent propagation in external fiber leads to soliton shaping and sub-picosecond pulse compression. Shorter laser cavities produce more stable pulses, and proper intracavity spectral filtering fosters stable, high-power ({dollar}sim{dollar}5 W), pulse generation. Results of numerical calculations based on the Nonlinear Schroedinger wave propagation equation and including the effects of intracavity filters, bandwidth-limited gain, and temporal modulation qualitatively agree with these observations.; Novel dual- and multi-wavelength mode-locked fiber lasers are demonstrated using properly oriented high-birefringent fiber sections in the cavity. These sources generate simultaneous picosecond pulses at different wavelengths. Output matches that expected from theory. |
