Abstract

We show that the relative intensity noise (RIN) of a mode-locked fiber laser can be suppressed below a $-140\mathrm{dB}/\mathrm{Hz}$ level for the entire $>20\mathrm{Hz}$ offset frequency range by a proper combination of intra-cavity and extra-cavity optical bandpass filters. When a 12-nm-bandwidth intra-cavity filter and a 16-nm-bandwidth extra-cavity filter are employed for a polarization-maintaining-nonlinear-amplifying-loop-mirror (PM-NALM)–based Er-fiber laser, the RIN spectrum level is suppressed by $\sim 30\mathrm{dB}$ in the low offset frequency range. The resulting integrated rms RIN is only 0.0054% [1 Hz–1 MHz]—to our knowledge, one of the lowest integrated RIN performances for any mode-locked laser reported so far. Besides the simplicity, this double-filtering approach has an additional advantage: unlike active pump-laser feedback methods, it does not have any resonant peaks in the stabilized RIN spectrum. In addition to the RIN suppression, with intra-cavity bandpass filtering, the integrated rms timing jitter is also reduced from 7.29-fs (no-filter) to 2.95-fs (12-nm intra-cavity filter) [10 kHz–1 MHz] in the soliton PM-NALM laser.

© 2017 Optical Society of America

Polarization-maintaining nonlinear-amplifying-loop-mirror mode-locked fiber laser based on a 3 × 3 coupler

Dohyun Kim, Dohyeon Kwon, Bongwan Lee, and Jungwon Kim
Opt. Lett. 44(5) 1068-1071 (2019)

Low-noise mode-locking in a GHz repetition rate Tm³⁺-doped fiber laser

Zhaoheng Liang, Wei Lin, Wenlong Wang, Xu Hu, Minjie Pan, Yiheng Fan, Chiyi Wei, Luyi Wang, Guowu Tang, Xiaoming Wei, and Zhongmin Yang
Opt. Lett. 49(2) 403-406 (2024)

All-optical frequency and intensity noise suppression of single-frequency fiber laser

Can Li, Shanhui Xu, Xiang Huang, Yu Xiao, Zhouming Feng, Changsheng Yang, Kaijun Zhou, Wei Lin, Jiulin Gan, and Zhongmin Yang
Opt. Lett. 40(9) 1964-1967 (2015)

Robust, low-noise, polarization-maintaining mode-locked Er-fiber laser with a planar lightwave circuit (PLC) device as a multi-functional element

Chur Kim, Dohyeon Kwon, Dohyun Kim, Sun Young Choi, Sang Jun Cha, Ki Sun Choi, Dong-Il Yeom, Fabian Rotermund, and Jungwon Kim
Opt. Lett. 42(8) 1472-1475 (2017)

Broadband tuning of a long-cavity all-fiber mode-locked thulium-doped fiber laser using an acousto-optic bandpass filter

E. Hernández-Escobar, M. Bello-Jiménez, A. Camarillo-Avilés, R. López-Estopier, O. Pottiez, M. V. Hernández-Arriaga, M. Durán-Sánchez, B. Ibarra-Escamilla, and M. V. Andrés
Opt. Lett. 44(17) 4183-4186 (2019)