Abstract

Passively-mode-locked fiber soliton lasers (FSL) are an attractive optical short-pulse source for laboratory and telecommunications applications. The energy-quantization effect caused by the soliton regime of operation of FSLs results in excellent stability of the duration and energy of the individual pulses, but it also leads to pulse-repetition-rate instabilities, which for many applications are unacceptable. Recently, we have experimentally demonstrated that, under certain conditions, stable passive harmonic mode locking occurs in a ring-laser configuration,¹ and time jitter as low as 600 fs can be obtained at a repetition rate as high as 463 MHz in a fully passive ring configuration.²

© 1995 Optical Society of America