Increasing up to 7 times the stability of passively mode-locked fiber ring laser by introducing in the cavity a certain length of dispersion compensating fiber

Passively Mode-Locked Fiber Lasers (PMFL) performances strongly depend on the type and position of the elements used in the cavity. We report, based on various experimental attempts to improve the performances of PMFL, an increase of up to seven times of the sol tonic stability if a length of dispersion compensating fiber (DCF) is introduced between the amplifier and the saturable absorber. This area of the cavity is very important, as found when using the same length of DCF in other positions. We also observe that the performances of the laser are improved; for the same pumping power the spectral width of the sol tonic pulse grows and its duration decreases sensitively. The optimum length of the DCF depends on cavity properties such as total length, cavity gain, and attenuation. \ua9 2010 SPIE