SOLITON VERSUS NONSOLITON OPERATION OF FIBER RING LASERS

To date most passively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser systems ha ve employed solitons for short pulse generation, and ultrashort high e nergy pulses have been difficult to achieve. We show that by reducing the system nonlinearity via pulse stretching and employing net positiv e dispersion cavities, pulses of sub-100-fs duration and >100 pJ energ y are readily generated. Data are presented for varying net dispersion in a fiber ring.