title: A stable polarization switching laser from a bidirectional passively mode-locked thulium-doped fiber oscillator.
abstract: We report on a novel polarization switching laser from a bidirectional passively mode-locked thulium(Tm)-doped fiber oscillator, which was characterized by the periodical change of polarization state of every pulse. The switching laser was created by combing two orthogonally stable vector solitons, which were found to be wave-breaking-free pulses in the all-anomalous-dispersion regime. The measured repetition rates of switching laser and the corresponding vector solitons were 49.596 MHz, 24.798 MHz, and 24.798MHz. By controlling wave plates, either of the polarized pulse trains can be switched on or off. To our knowledge, this is the first report of polarization switching laser with vector solitons in Tm fiber oscillators.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi’an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an 710119, China. zhouwei@opt.cn
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Deyuan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: Yishan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Hefeng
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Fei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D005336:Fiber Optic Technology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D007834:Lasers; D009991:Oscillometry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D013932:Thulium / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D013932:Thulium