Actively Q‐switching an all polarization‐maintaining erbium‐doped fiber laser using an intracavity electro‐optic modulator

Abstract

This present study demonstrates the utilization of an electro‐optic modulator (EOM) to actively Q‐switch the pulses produced by an all‐polarization‐maintaining (all‐PM) erbium‐doped fiber (EDF) laser (all‐PM‐EDF laser). Electrical sine waves that produced steady microsecond pulses at 1552 nm were used to power the 10 GHz bandwidth EOM. By altering the frequency of the external modulation signal and the power of the input pump, the width of the pulses produced by the all‐PM‐EDF laser (4 μs) could be further decreased to 2.6 μs. When the modulation frequency of the all‐PM‐EDF laser was 15 kHz, the highest pulse energy that it produced (145 nJ) corresponded to its highest power output (52 mW). Therefore, sources of single‐polarization pulsed lasers that are significantly resistant to mechanical and temperature disturbances can be designed by merging the configuration of an all‐PM with an EOM.