Abstract

To date, femtosecond soliton pulse generation in doped fiber lasers has been exclusively limited to erbium based systems, although femtosecond pulses have been generated in neodymium doped fibers exploiting solitonlike pulse shaping and femtosecond pulses can also be obtained using Raman gain in anomalously dispersive fibers. Over the past few years, considerable interest has been directed towards Pr³⁺- doped fluoride fiber amplifiers providing gain in the second telecommunications window around 1.3 µm. Praseodymium in a fluoride glass host exhibits an efficient, broad band, high gain and has the potential to support femtosecond pulses. One problem arises with such fibers in that the dispersion at 1.3 µm is normal, with a typical value of ~100-150 ps/nm km.

© 1994 Optical Society of America