Abstract

Holey fiber technology promises the development of a whole new range of fibers with exotic optical properties including endlessly single mode guidance, ¹ high optical nonlinearity² and anomalous dispersion at short wavelengths.³ Many of these properties are of great relevance to fiber lasers. For example, the possibility of zero dispersion wavelength in the visible allows the possibility of Yb³⁺ doped fiber based soliton lasers operating around 1µm. Recently the first results on continuous-wave laser action within a holey fiber have been reported.⁴ In this paper we describe what we believe to be the first mode- locked holey fiber laser.

© 2001 Optical Society of America