Abstract

Fiber lasers using an effective saturable absorber based on the nonlinear polarization evolution mechanism are well-known for their ability to produce a wide range of mode-locked dynamics [1-4]. We have implemented electronically-driven polarization controllers (EPC) to computer-control the effective nonlinear transfert function of the cavity, which then governs the pulsed laser dynamics. We have recently demonstrated the ability of an evolutionary algorithm (EA)[5] for finding self-starting mode-locked regimes [6]. The setup sketched on Fig. 1a shows the implementation of the feedback loop on the all-fiber cavity. Our first experimental trial was to obtain single-pulse operation, based on the optimization of the peak power at the fundamental repetition rate of the laser cavity, using a fast Fourier transform (FFT) of the temporal intensity recording.

© 2015 IEEE