Generation of large optical bistability in a single-frequency Tm-doped fiber laser using saturable absorber

Junxiang Zhang; Quan Sheng; Lu Zhang; Shuai Sun; Chaodu Shi; Shijie Fu; Wei Shi; Jianquan Yao

doi:10.1117/12.2578912

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5 March 2021 Generation of large optical bistability in a single-frequency Tm-doped fiber laser using saturable absorber

Junxiang Zhang, Quan Sheng, Lu Zhang, Shuai Sun, Chaodu Shi, Shijie Fu, Wei Shi, Jianquan Yao

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Proceedings Volume 11665, Fiber Lasers XVIII: Technology and Systems; 116650J (2021) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2578912
Event: SPIE LASE, 2021, Online Only

Abstract

We observed a large optical bistability in a single-frequency thulium fiber laser with ring cavity configuration. A piece of unpumped Tm-doped fiber served as nonlinear saturable absorber (SA), which also acted as a narrow-bandpass filter by forming self-induced gratings with counter-propagate lasers and enabled single-frequency laser operation at 1720 nm. Due to the large absorption cross section of thulium ions at 1720 nm, the unpumped Tm-doped fiber has large variable losses, hence resulting in strong optical bistability. With 0.75-m SA fiber, a 4.8-W wide bistable region was achieved. The evolution of bistable region with different lengths of SA fibers was investigated. The bistable region became narrower with decreasing SA fiber length, and totally disappeared at a SA fiber length of 0.15 m. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first observation of optical bistability in thulium fiber lasers.

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Junxiang Zhang, Quan Sheng, Lu Zhang, Shuai Sun, Chaodu Shi, Shijie Fu, Wei Shi, and Jianquan Yao "Generation of large optical bistability in a single-frequency Tm-doped fiber laser using saturable absorber", Proc. SPIE 11665, Fiber Lasers XVIII: Technology and Systems, 116650J (5 March 2021); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2578912

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