Abstract

Fiber lasers which exhibit gain through rare- earth doping have attracted much attention. These lasers have several advantages for optical communication systems, primarily the ability to generate ultrashort pulses and to launch them in telecommunications fibers with minimum coupling losses. Recently, pulses as short as 98 fs have been experimentally attained in an erbium-doped fiber laser.¹ The potential for using these lasers as subpicosecond soliton pulse sources motivates us to better understand and characterize their behavior.

© 1994 Optical Society of America