title: Manipulation of operation states by polarization control in an erbium-doped fiber laser with a hybrid saturable absorber.
abstract: We propose an operation switchable ring-cavity erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) via intra-cavity polarization control. By using a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror in the EDFL cavity, stable Q-switching, Q-switched mode-locking, continuous-wave mode-locking, pulse splitting, and harmonic mode-locking pulses can be manipulated simply by detuning a polarization controller while keeping the pump power at the same level. All EDFL operation states can be obtained under the polarization angles detuning within 180 degrees. Continuous-wave mode-locking of EDFL with 800-fs pulsewidth repeated at 4 MHz has been obtained, for which the output pulse energy is 0.5 nJ and the peak power is 625 W. Interaction between solitons and the accompanied non-soliton component will lead to either pulse splitting or 5th-order harmonic mode-locking at repetition rate of 20 MHz.
authors.affiliation: Department of Science, Taipei Municipal University of Education 1, Ai-Kuo West Rd., Taipei 100, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Kuei-Huei
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Jung-Jui
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.forename: Hsiao-Hua
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Chao-Kuei
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Gong-Ru
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Lin