A polarization maintaining, dispersion

managed, femtosecond figure-eight fiber

laser
J. W. Nicholson and M. Andrejco
OFS Laboratories, 19 Schoolhouse Rd., Somerset, NJ 08873
jwn@ofsoptics.com

Abstract: We demonstrate a polarization maintaining, figure-eight

erbium-doped fiber laser with a dispersion managed cavity. The laser
was passively modelocked and produced pulses that were de-chirped to
427 fs pulses outside the laser cavity. An intra-cavity amplitude modulator
was used to initiate the pulses, but the modulator was turned off during
femtosecond pulse operation.
2006 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (140.3510) Lasers, fiber; (320.7090) Ultrafast lasers;

References and links

1. D. J. Richardson, R. I. Laming, D. N. Payne, V. Matsas, and M. W. Phillips, Selfstarting, Passively Modelocked
Erbium Fibre Ring Laser Based on the Amplifying Sagnac Switch, Electron. Lett. 27, 542544 (1991).
2. I. N. Duling, Subpicosecond All-Fibre Erbium Laser, Electron. Lett. 27, 544 (1991).
3. I. N. Duling, C.-J. Chen, P. K. A. Wai, and C. R. Menyuk, Operation of a Nonlinear Loop Mirror in a Laser
Cavity, IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 30, 194199 (1994).
4. I. Hartl, G. Imeshev, L. Dong, G. C. Cho, and M. E. Fermann, Ultra-Compact Dispersion Compensated Fem-
tosecond Fiber Oscillators and Amplifiers, in Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, p. CThG1 (OSA, 2005).
5. K. Tamura, E. P. Ippen, H. A. Haus, and L. E. Nelson, 77-Fs Pulse Generation from a Stretched-Pulse Mode-
Locked All-Fiber Ring Laser, Opt. Lett. 18, 10801082 (1993).
6. D. Taverner, D. J. Richardson, and D. N. Payne, Polarisation Maintaining Figure-8 Laser, in Nonlinear Guided
Wave Phenomenon, pp. WC3 (Cambridge, 1993).
7. M. L. Dennis and I. N. Duling, Exerimental Study of Sideband Generation in Femtosecond Fiber Lasers, IEEE
J. Quantum Electron. 30, 14691477 (1994).
8. G. Sluyterman and U. Ropke, Comparison of Numerical Simulation of a Polarization-Maintaining Figure-Eight
Laser with Experiment, in Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, p. CWA6 (OSA, 1999).

1. Introduction
Fiber lasers have received a great deal of attention recently as low noise sources of femtosecond
pulses at a variety of wavelengths. One of the first demonstrations of a passively mode-locked
fiber laser was the figure eight fiber laser [1,2], which makes use of a nonlinear amplifying loop
mirror (NALM) for modelocking [3].
One of the primary drawbacks of femtosecond fiber lasers is sensitivity to environmental
fluctuations. Figure eight lasers for example can drop out of modelocking when subjected to
mechanical perturbations or significant temperature changes. These instabilities can be largely
eliminated however by the use of polarization maintaining (PM) fibers. PM fiber lasers mod-
elocked with semiconductor, saturable absorber mirrors have been demonstrated to be robust
sources of femtosecond pulses [4].
In spite of the environmental sensitivity, figure eight lasers, as well as polarization rotation
modelocked ring lasers [5], remain popular lab tools because of the simple cavity layouts,

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(C) 2006 OSA 4 September 2006 / Vol. 14, No. 18 / OPTICS EXPRESS 8160
inexpensive components, and easy construction. While the polarization rotation modelocked
ring laser is not amenable to an all PM design, there is nothing in the cavity layout of the
figure-eight laser that precludes the use of PM fibers.
In general, there has been very little work on PM figure-eight lasers. A self-starting, fully po-
larization maintaining figure-eight laser has been demonstrated [6], however the laser operated
at a relatively low repetition frequency of 525 kHz and produced pulses of only 2.3 ps in width.
The laser cavity was not dispersion managed which is important for achieving the shortest
possible pulses in fiber lasers [7]. Most other work with polarization maintaining, passively-
modelocked figure-eight laser have used PM fiber in only part of the cavity [8]. In this work
we demonstrate, to the best of our knowledge for the first time, an all polarization maintaining
passively modelocked, femtosecond figure-eight fiber laser with a dispersion managed cavity.
The laser operated with repetition frequencies between 16 and 32 MHz and produced pulses
with a spectral width of 10 nm that were de-chirped outside the laser cavity to a FWHM of
427 fs.

2. Polarization-maintaining, figure-eight fiber laser

A schematic of the laser cavity is shown in Fig. 1. In typical figure eight lasers mechanical
polarization controllers are used to align the state of polarization to a point conducive to mode-
locking. In this system, all fibers and components were PM, and no polarization controllers were
used. Between 1 and 2 m of a specially designed, PM, high concentration Er-doped fiber was
used. The PM Er fiber had a peak absorption at 1530 nm of 27.5 dB/m, a beat length at 1530 nm
of 14.3 mm and dispersion parameter at 1530 nm of -34.4 ps/nm-km. The anomalous dispersion
of the PM single mode fiber was used to balance the normal dispersion of the erbium-doped
fiber.
The laser was pumped by a 980 nm laser diode delivering a maximum of 350 mW of power
through a 980/1550 PM WDM. A PM amplitude modulator with a bandwidth of 2 GHz (JDS
Uniphase) was used to initiate mode-locking. However, under normal femtosecond operation
the RF drive was turned off, and passive mode-locking was maintained with the NALM. A
single polarization, PM isolator performed the dual tasks of providing unidirectional operation
in the non amplifying loop, as well as adding polarization dependant loss to the cavity, to
provide operation on a single polarization state.
When the laser was first turned on, it operated in CW mode, even at the highest available
pump power. The spectrum showed several narrow spikes, plotted in Fig. 2(a). When the am-
plitude modulator was driven with a purely sinusoidal drive at the cavity repetition frequency,

output
PM 70/30 PM single-mode
splitter
30% fiber

PM amplitude 70% 980 nm

modulator pump
PM 50/50
splitter

RF drive

single polarization, PM Erdoped

PM isolator fiber

Fig. 1. Schematic of the polarization maintaining figure-eight erbium laser.

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(C) 2006 OSA 4 September 2006 / Vol. 14, No. 18 / OPTICS EXPRESS 8161
 0.09
-10 (a) (b)

relative intensity (a.u.)

RF off

power (dB)
-20
0.06

-30 RF on
RF on
0.03
RF off
-40

0.00
-50
1525 1530 1535 1530.9 1531.2 1531.5
wavelength (nm) wavelength (nm)

Fig. 2. (a) Lasing spectrum when the RF modulator is off (red line) and when the amplitude
modulator is driven by a pure sine wave at the cavity repetition frequency (blue line). ( b)
Close up of one peak in the spectrum from (a), plotted on a linear scale

(a) 1.0 (b)

relative intensity (a.u.)

-30
1.5 m Er f = 19.6 MHz 0.8
power (dB)

-40
0.6
-50 f = 16.2 MHz
0.4
-60
0.2

-70
0.0
1510 1520 1530 1540 1550 1560 1510 1520 1530 1540 1550 1560
wavelength (nm) wavelength (nm)

Fig. 3. Spectrum of the laser when passively modelocked. (a) Spectrum when 1.5 m of
Er-doped fiber was used, for two different amounts of PM-SMF in the cavity. (b) Spectrum
for frep =19.6 MHz from (a), plotted on a linear scale.

the spectrum broadened slightly (red line, Fig. 2(a)) and a pulse train was observed using a
fast photodiode and an oscilloscope. An expanded view of one of the peaks in Fig. 2(a) is
shown in Fig. 2(b) on a linear scale. Assuming sech2 pulses, the blue curve in Fig. 2(b) with
the amplitude modulator on corresponds to bandwidth limited pulses with a FWHM of 18 ps.
Femtosecond pulse operation was not observed with the amplitude modulator on and driven by
a purely sinusoidal drive.
When the RF drive to the amplitude modulator was turned off however, the laser was capa-
ble of transitioning into femtosecond operation. Once femtosecond pulsing was observed, the
modulator was left off and pulsing was maintained by the passive modelocking operation of the
NALM. Further details of the transition between the long, actively modelocked pulses, and the
passively modelocked femtosecond pulses are given in Section 3. By driving the modulator at
harmonics of the fundamental cavity repetition frequency, we could observe active harmonic
modelocking, however, in these cases, when the modulator was turned off, we never observed
the laser to transition to passive modelocking. The transition to passive modelocking was only
observed when the modulator was driven at the fundamental cavity repetition frequency.
The spectrum of the laser while passively modelocked is shown in Fig. 3. For this particular
case, 1.5 m of PM Er was used. Figure 3(a) shows the spectra obtained for two different amounts
of SMF in the cavity. The effect of managing the net dispersion in the cavity by balancing
anomalous and normal dispersion fibers can be seen in the spectral width and the spacing of the

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 1.2
(a) (b) correlation FWHM = 659 fs

correlation signal (a.u.)

relative intensity (a.u.)
1.0 1.0

0.8

0.5 0.6

0.4

0.0 0.2

0 100 200 300 400 0.0

-2 -1 0 1 2
time (ns) time (ps)

Fig. 4. (a) Passively modelocked pulse train measured with a fast photodiode and oscillo-
scope. (b) Measured auto-correlation of the passively modelocked pulse train. The FWHM
of the correlation was 659 fs, corresponding to a FWHM of 427 fs for a sech2 pulse.

1.0
1.5 m Er, frep = 19.6 MHz
relative intensity

1.3 m Er, frep = 23.8 MHz

0.8 1.1 m Er, frep = 32.0 MHz

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.0
1510 1520 1530 1540 1550 1560
wavelength (nm)

Fig. 5. Broadest measured modelocked spectra for different lengths of erbium-doped fiber
in the cavity

Kelly sidebands [7]. Figure 3(b) shows the spectrum for a repetition frequency of 19.6 MHz
plotted on a linear scale. The average output power for this spectrum was -13 dBm.
Measurements of the temporal characteristics of the laser when passively modelocked are
shown in Fig. 4. A typical pulse train, with the laser operating at 27.5 MHz is shown in Fig. 4(a).
Figure 4(b) shows a measured autocorrelation from the pulse train in Fig. 4(a). The pulses
exiting the laser had a small amount of positive chirp, requiring a short length ( 1 m) of
normal dispersion fiber spliced to the output pigtail. The normal dispersion fiber was cut back
until the shortest correlation was measured. The FWHM of the correlation was 659 fs, which
corresponds to a pulse FWHM of 427 fs assuming a sech2 pulse. The FWHM of the spectrum
corresponding to this correlation was 9.3 nm which gives a time-bandwidth product of 0.50,
somewhat higher than the value of 0.31 expected for sech2 pulses. This discrepancy is most
likely due to the negative dispersion fiber used to de-chirp the pulse outside the cavity. This
fiber had a positive dispersion slope at 1535 nm, compared to the negative dispersion slope of
the PM erbium fiber used intra-cavity.
The PM erbium-doped fiber was cut back, and at the same time, the single mode fiber in
the cavity was trimmed in order to produce the broadest modelocked spectrum possible. The
results of this measurement are shown in Fig. 5. In this way, the measured pulse repetition rate
was varied from as low as 16 MHz to as high as 32 MHz.
Once the laser was modelocked the pulsed operation was extremely robust. The fibers could
be strongly mechanically perturbed without interrupting the pulsed operation or changing the

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(C) 2006 OSA 4 September 2006 / Vol. 14, No. 18 / OPTICS EXPRESS 8163
 0.9 1.0
RF turned off RF turned off
0.8 (a) (b)
0.7 0.8

intensity (a.u.)

intensity (a.u.)
0.6
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.4
0.3
0.2 0.2
0.1
0.0 0.0
0 50 100 150 200 0 50 100 150 200
time (s) time (s)

Fig. 6. Measurement of the temporal evolution of the laser output when the RF drive power
to the amplitude modulator was switched off. (a) Instance when laser reverted to CW os-
cillation. (b) Instance when the laser transitioned to passive modelocking.

lasing spectrum. The robust nature of the modelocking was attributable to the all-PM configu-
ration. The measured polarization extinction ratio at the output port of the laser was 13 dB.

3. Initiation of passive modelocking

Although the laser was very stable once passive modelocking was achieved, self-starting op-
eration of the passive modelocking was not observed. The amplitude modulator was used to
provide picosecond pulses that seeded the femtosecond pulse operation. Once the laser was
passively modelocked and operating with femtosecond pulses, the amplitude modulator was
kept off. Details of the transition between active modelocking with picosecond pulses, and pas-
sive modelocking with femtosecond pulses are provided in this section.
Initially the amplitude modulator was driven with a purely sinusoidal drive with a frequency
equal to the fundamental cavity frequency. Doing so produced an actively modelocked pulse
train with a bandwidth limit of roughly 18 ps. When the drive power to the amplitude modulator
was turned off, in the time domain, relaxation oscillations were observed that quickly subsided,
and the laser returned to CW operation. This behavior is shown in Fig. 6(a).
Occasionally however, the laser was observed to transition to passive modelocking when the
RF power to the amplitude modulator was turned off. The temporal behavior in such a case is
plotted in Fig. 6(b). In this instance, the picosecond pulses left over from the active modelocking
after the modulator was turned off provided a sufficient seed to initiate passively modelocked
femtosecond pulses.
The laser most easily achieved pulsed operation at the highest pump powers. In turn this
meant that when the laser transitioned to passive modelocking it typically oscillated with mul-
tiple pulses in the cavity, and the spectrum showed a corresponding interference pattern as
plotted in Fig. 7. However, once passive modelocking was initiated the pump power could be
reliably turned down and the extra pulses would drop out, leaving only a single pulse in the
cavity, also plotted in Fig. 7. The spectra in Fig. 7 have been offset vertically for clarity.
In general, the transition from active modelocking with the RF power on to passive mod-
elocking with the RF power off would occur roughly once every 20 to once every 100 times
the RF power was turned off, or even less frequently. We also observed that achieving passive
modelocking became much more difficult the more additional fiber was added to (or removed
from) the cavity and the pulse spectrum got narrower.
In order to make the transition from active to passive modelocking more reliable, we added
an additional sinusoidal amplitude modulation to the RF power that then drove the optical
amplitude modulator. The RF power, which was initially a sine wave with a frequency in the

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(C) 2006 OSA 4 September 2006 / Vol. 14, No. 18 / OPTICS EXPRESS 8164
 -20

-30 multiple pulse

power (dB)
-40

-50
single pulse
-60

-70

-80
1510 1520 1530 1540 1550 1560
wavelength (nm)

Fig. 7. Spectrum of the laser at the highest pump power immediately after transitioning
to passive modelocking, showing multiple pulses in the cavity, compared to the spectrum
after the pump power has been turned down so that only a single pulse was in the cavity.
Spectra have been offset vertically for clarity.

1.5
(a) (b)
relative intensity (a.u.)

1.5

relative intensity (a.u.)

1.0
1.0

0.5
0.5

0.0 0.0

0 50 100 150 200 0 50 100 150 200

time (s) time (s)

Fig. 8. Q-switched, modelocked pulse trains observed when the RF power was amplitude
modulated. (a) Modulation frequency = 38 kHz. (b) Modulation frequency = 49 kHz.

MHz range, equal to the cavity repetition frequency, was additionally amplitude modulated with
a sine wave in the kHz frequency range. In general, with the amplitude modulated RF power,
the laser produced Q-switched pulses roughly 1 s in width underneath which lay ps pulses.
Such a Q-switched, actively modelocked pulse train is shown in Fig. 8(a). In this case, the RF
power was amplitude modulated at 38 kHz.
At certain resonance frequencies, when the amplitude modulation on the RF drive power was
equal to the relaxation oscillation frequency seen in Fig. 6(a), or a subharmonic of the relaxation
frequency, then bursts of passively modelocked pulses could be observed. Figure 8(b) shows
the time trace when the amplitude modulation frequency was 49 kHz, which is approximately
half the oscillation relaxation frequency observed in Fig. 6. One Q-switched spike can be seen
to seed a burst of femtosecond pulses, that lasts approximately 50 s.
Under such conditions the bursts of modelocked pulses were observable in the optical spec-
trum as well. Figure 9 shows the optical spectrum when the RF power was amplitude modu-
lated. Two spectra are plotted for a modulation frequency of 38 kHz, compared to a modulation
frequency of 49 kHz. The spectra have been offset vertically for clarity. When the modulation
frequency approached the resonance of the oscillation relaxation frequency, the pulse bursts
became visible in the optical spectrum as a broad noise plateau.
With the amplitude modulated RF power driving the optical amplitude modulator, the tran-

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(C) 2006 OSA 4 September 2006 / Vol. 14, No. 18 / OPTICS EXPRESS 8165
 0

-20 fmod = 49 kHz

power (dB)
-40

-60

fmod = 38 kHz
-80

1520 1540 1560

wavelength (nm)

Fig. 9. Optical spectrum observed when the RF drive power was amplitude modulated at
38 kHz compared to 49 kHz. The spectra have been offset vertically for clarity.

sition to passively modelocked pulses could be obtained much more readily. For a given length
of erbium fiber, the SMF length was required to be within 1 m of the zero net dispersion point
of the cavity. By fine tuning the MHz frequency of RF power, passive modelocking could be
observed even with the RF power on, and femtosecond pulses could be maintained when the
RF power was turned off nearly 100% of the time.

4. Discussion and Conclusions

By generating an actively Q-switched, modelocked pulse train, the figure-eight laser was readily
able to enter the femtosecond pulsed regime. This situation can be understood by estimating the
peak power of the pulses under the various operating conditions.
When the laser was passively modelocked with a single pulse in the cavity the minimum
average power at the output port required to maintain modelocking was -13.8 dBm. For pulses
with a repetition rate of 27 MHz, the minimum pulse width was approximately 400 fs. Thus the
peak pulse power was approximately 3.8 W. These pulses corresponded to the minimum peak
power fs pulses needed for switching in the NALM.
When the laser was actively modelocked at the highest available pump powers, the output
power was -12 dBm, and the minimum pulse width was approximately 18 ps, for a pulse peak
power of approximately 0.13 W. However when the laser was actively Q-switched and mode-
locked at the maximum pump power, the output power increased to -10.5 dBm. Furthermore the
output of the laser was a 49 kHz Q-switched envelope with a width of 0.93 s, and a 27 MHz,
18 ps pulse train underneath the Q-switched envelope. This pulse train corresponds to peak
powers of 4 W. So, by generating the Q-switched, actively modelocked pulse train, the laser
can reach the peak powers required for switching in the NALM, and thereby readily achieve
passive modelocking.
Ideally one would like to achieve self-starting operation in order to be able to eliminate
the amplitude modulator altogether. In the prior demonstration of the PM figure-eight laser,
it was observed that self starting was only obtained for certain coupling ratios for the center
splitter [6]. Therefore, going forward we plan to investigate alternate splitting ratios in the
dispersion managed figure-eight laser.
In conclusion, we have demonstrated a polarization maintaining, passively modelocked,
figure-eight fiber laser with a dispersion managed cavity, producing pulses with a 10 nm spec-
tral width at repetition frequencies between 16 and 32 MHz. The average power was -13 dBM,
and the polarization extinction ratio was 13 dB. When passively modelocked, the laser was

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(C) 2006 OSA 4 September 2006 / Vol. 14, No. 18 / OPTICS EXPRESS 8166
environmentally stable and extremely robust; mechanical perturbations did not interrupt mode-
locking or change the spectral shape of the pulses. The pulses were de-chirped outside the laser
cavity to a minimum width of 427 fs.

#72070 - $15.00 USD Received 20 June 2006; accepted 23 July 2006

(C) 2006 OSA 4 September 2006 / Vol. 14, No. 18 / OPTICS EXPRESS 8167