High-power yellow DSR pulses generated from a mode-locked Dy:ZBLAN fiber laser

Abstract

Ultrafast yellow lasers are in high demand in recent biomedical and medical applications; however, direct emission of mode-locked pulses in yellow at the high-power level still presents a huge technical challenge to date. By integrating the nonlinear polarization rotation (NPR) scheme into a Dy:ZBLAN fiber laser, dissipative soliton resonance pulses at ∼575 nm are demonstrated for the first time, to the best of our knowledge. The average output power reaches ∼240 mW at maximum, which is an improvement of almost two orders of magnitude over those reported from the latest mode-locked visible fiber lasers. The laser scheme combines a piece of large-core Dy:ZBLAN gain fiber and free-space NPR components designated at the yellow bandwidth. The maximal pulse energy is 2.4 nJ at the repetition rate of ∼100 MHz and the minimal pulse duration is 83 ps. The achieved wavelength of 575 nm is the shortest ever reached from a fiber-based mode-locked laser to date.