Studies on ytterbium-doped fibre laser operating in different regimes

Abstract

An ytterbium-doped fibre laser with a unidirectional ring cavity containing a polarizer placed between two in-line polarization controllers is presented. Depending on an equivalent saturable absorber, this laser operates in continuous, Q-switched mode-locked or CW mode-locked regimes. The passive method described here allowed us to choose the operating regime of the fibre laser by rotating the two polarization controllers and adjusting the pump power. Results of numerical simulations of pulse propagation in such a mode-locked fibre ring laser are presented, which reveals that the Q-switched mode-locked or CW modelocked regimes can be achieved by aligning the polarizer near the slow or the fast axes of the fibre. © 2006 IOP Publishing Ltd.