Abstract

A novel harmonic mode-locked fiber laser based on nonlinear multimode interference (NL-MMI) in a microfiber-assisted ultrafast optical switch is proposed in this Letter. The microfiber-assisted ultrafast optical switch can be obtained by tapering the splicing point of the graded-index multimode fiber (GIMF) and single-mode fiber, which not only helps to shorten the self-imaging period in GIMF to relax the strict requirement of NL-MMI on the length of multimode fiber, but also improves the harmonic order. In the experiment, with the waist diameter of ∼15 µm, the repetition rates of the fiber laser can be stably locked at 285 MHz, corresponding to the 16th-order harmonic mode-locking, with the pulse duration of 1.52 ps. Our results provide novel insight into the design of a high-repetition-rate laser and the application of microfibers in the mode-locking device.

© 2022 Chinese Laser Press

Microfiber-assisted gigahertz harmonic mode-locking in ultrafast fiber laser

Lin Huang, Yusheng Zhang, Yudong Cui, Jiangrong Qiu, and Xueming Liu
Opt. Lett. 45(17) 4678-4681 (2020)

All-fiber dual-wavelength mode-locked fiber laser based on microfiber-assisted NL-MMI

Xiaochen Zhang, He Zhang, Liang Jin, Xiaohui Li, Shangzhi Xie, and Xiaohui Ma
Appl. Opt. 61(33) 9979-9984 (2022)

Generation of cylindrical vector beams in a linear cavity mode-locked fiber laser based on nonlinear multimode interference

Jialiang Lv, Jiaqiang Lin, Xuexiao Ma, Chuansheng Dai, Chun Gu, Peijun Yao, Lixin Xu, and Qiwen Zhan
Opt. Express 30(11) 18320-18329 (2022)

Generation of different mode-locked states in a Yb-doped fiber laser based on nonlinear multimode interference

Peiyun Cheng, Mengmeng Han, Qianying Li, and Xuewen Shu
Opt. Express 30(20) 35911-35922 (2022)

All-fiber passively mode-locked laser using nonlinear multimode interference of step-index multimode fiber

Tao Chen, Qiaoli Zhang, Yaping Zhang, Xin Li, Haikun Zhang, and Wei Xia
Photon. Res. 6(11) 1033-1039 (2018)