title: Passively Q-switched erbium all-fiber lasers by use of thulium-doped saturable-absorber fibers.
abstract: We demonstrate all-fiber passively Q-switched erbium lasers at 1570 nm using Tm(3+)-doped saturable-absorber fibers. The absorption cross section of a Tm(3+)-doped fiber at 1570 nm was measured in a bleaching experiment to be about 1.44 x 10(-20) cm(2). With a thulium-doped fiber, sequential pulses with a pulse energy of 9 microJ and a pulse duration of about 420 ns were stably produced at repetition rates in the range 0.1 to 2 kHz. The maximum pulse repetition rate was 6 kHz, limited by the maximum pump power of a 980-nm laser diode, about 230 mW.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Microelectronics, Department of Electrical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City, 70101, Taiwan. tzongyow@mail.ncku.edu.tw
authors.forename: Tzong-Yow
authors.initials: TY
authors.lastname: Tsai
authors.forename: Yen-Cheng
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.forename: Shih-Hao
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Hung
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D004871:Erbium / Q000737:chemistry*; D005336:Fiber Optic Technology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D053844:Lasers, Solid-State; D008027:Light; D012542:Scattering, Radiation; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D013932:Thulium / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D004871:Erbium; D013932:Thulium