15-µm monolithic GaInNAs semiconductor saturable-absorber mode locking of an erbium fiber laser

Abstract

We present a new monolithic GaAs-based semiconductor saturable absorber operating at 1.55 microm. An epitaxially grown absorber mirror in a GaInNAs/GaAs material system was successfully used to mode lock an erbium-doped fiber laser. The GaInNAs material system possesses intriguing physical properties and provides great potential for lasers and nonlinear optical devices operating at the 1.3-1.55-microm wavelength range.

Wavelength-Tunable, Passively Mode-Locked Erbium-Doped Fiber Master-Oscillator Incorporating a Semiconductor Saturable Absorber Mirror

“…Since the first GaAs-based SESAM devices were developed for 800-nm radiation [16], various semiconductor materials and compositions have been developed for other infrared ranges [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]: For 0.9-1-μm radiation, SESAMs are mostly fabricated in a form of an InGaAs multiple-quantumwell structure grown on top of a GaAs/AlAs Bragg mirror [23,30]. With such devices ML lasers based on neodymium (Nd)-and ytterbium (Yb)-doped fibers have been demonstrated [23,30].…”

“…With such a device, a ML laser based on a bismuth (Bi)-doped fiber has been demonstrated [32]. For radiations around 1.5 μm or above, InP-based [19,25,33] SESAMs and GaAs-based diluted nitride [27] SESAMs are commonly used: An InGaAs/InP Bragg mirror with an absorber made of InGaAs quantum wells has been used to generate 190-fs pulses from a thulium (Tm)-doped fiber laser operating at ~2 μm [33]. More recently, a ML Tm/Holmium (Ho)-doped fiber laser has been built with help of a SESAM where the absorber material was formed of a group of GaInSb quantum wells grown on top of an AlAsSb-GaSb Bragg mirror [24].…”

“…Thus, a variety of compact and self-starting PMLFLs in femtosecond and picosecond regimes have been demonstrated: For example, in the femtosecond regime, 320-fs soliton-like pulses with 40-pJ pulse energy have been generated in a simple linear cavity with an InGaAsP saturable absorber [19], while sub-500-fs pulses with repetition rates as high as 300 MHz have been generated with an InGaAs/InP saturable absorber [34], which could also operate at higher harmonics by increasing the repetition rate up to 2 GHz. In the picosecond regime, saturable absorbers based on GaInNAs/GaAs have been used to generate 7.6-ps noise-like pulses from an Er/Yb-doped fiber [35] and 1.2-ps soliton-like pulses from an EDF [27].…”

Er-doped fibre laser mode-locked by mechanically exfoliated graphene saturable absorber

“…The first technique is well−estab− lished and widely used in commercially available lasers. Self−started mode−locking operation with ultrashort pulse durations in Er−doped fibre lasers [13,14], as well as in diode−pumped solid−state lasers [15][16][17] were demonstra− ted. However, SESAMs suffer because of a narrow tuning range and a complex and expensive fabrication process.…”

Broadband SESAM for mode locked Yb:fiber lasers

“…However, there are two issues in the SESAMs in doing such way: the large variation in the reflectivity and the possible optical damage on the SESAMs. A thick absorption layer introduces a large phase shift that results in a modulation over the reflection band of the Bragg mirror [4,5], due to the imaginary part of the refractive index of the absorption material. The high absorption may also cause a high saturation fluence, which is the origin of the optical damage.…”