Abstract

Passive modelocking of fiber lasers has recently been shown to be a viable technique for the generation of ultra-short optical pulses^[1,2]. In fact pulse-widths as short as 38fsec have been generated with such lasers to date^[3], which compares well with pulse-widths obtainable with much more complex bulk laser systems^[4–8]. However, for practical applications not only the pulse-widths generated with a particular oscillator are important, but also its radio frequency (RF) noise characteristics. From the RF-spectrum of modelocked oscillators information about the amplitude-noise and timing jitter of the generated pulses can be inferred^[9–12]. Here we choose to investigate the noise characteristics of a fiber laser passively mode-locked by nonlinear polarization evolution^[2,3] due to the simplicity of the involved experimental set-up and its superior performance in short pulse generation compared to other fiber laser passive mode-locking schemes involving a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror^[1,13].

© 1991 Optical Society of America