ENVIRONMENTALLY STABLE HIGH-POWER SOLITON FIBER LASERS THAT USE CHIRPED FIBER BRAGG GRATINGS

Environmentally stable high-power erbium fiber soliton lasers are cons tructed by Kerr or carrier-type mode locking. We obtain high-energy pu lses by using relatively short fiber lengths and providing large amoun ts of negative dispersion with chirped fiber Bragg gratings. The pulse energies and widths generated with both types of soliton laser are fo und to scale with the square root of the cavity dispersion. Kerr mode locking requires pulses with an approximately three times higher nonli near phase shift in the cavity than carrier mode locking, which leads to the generation of slightly shorter pulses with as much as seven tim es higher pulse energies at the mode-locking threshold. (C) 1995 Optic al Society of America.