High pulse energy femtosecond large-mode-area photonic crystal fiber laser

A high pulse energy femtosecond fiber laser based on a large-mode-area photonic crystal fiber is demonstrated. A segment of Yb-doped single-polarization large-mode-area photonic crystal fiber with extremely low nonlinearity is explored as gain media of this fiber laser, resulting in intrinsically environmentally stability. The fiber laser is based on a linear cavity with dispersion compensation free configuration, and the stable mode-locking is obtained by a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM). The fiber laser directly generates 2.5 W of average power at a repetition rate of 51.4 MHz, corresponding to a single pulse energy of 50 nJ. The output pulse duration is 4.2 ps, which is dechirped to 410 fs after extracavity dispersion compensation. The nonlinear absorption of SESAM determines the pulse shaping at low output power, while the mode-locking mechanism is under the balance between spectrum broadening from self-phase-modulation and gain filtering at the high output power.