Development of ultrashort pulse fiber lasers for optical communication utilizing semiconductor devices

The nonlinear reflectivity of semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors is investigated with ultrafast time-resolved and time-averaged reflectivity measurements. The relative contributions of absorption bleaching and induced absorption are studied as a function of fluence and wavelength. The impact of induced absorption on the stability of continuous-wave mode-locking is considered theoretically. Picosecond pulses are produced from an Er/Yb waveguide laser using a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror, and the influence of two-photon absorption on mode-locking is studied. A semiconductor mirror exhibiting only induced absorption is used to stabilize a GHz repetition rate active harmonically mode-locked fiber laser, improving supermode suppression by eliminating pulse dropouts.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2000

Author dc:creator

• Thoen, Erik R. (Erik Robert)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Erich P. Ippen.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/16747

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/16747