Dispersion management of a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror-based Erbium-doped fiber laser

Abstract: We report an investigation of dispersion management of an all-polarization maintaining Er-fiber oscillator mode-locked via nonlinear amplification loop mirror in a figure-nine cavity configuration with two output ports. The performance of the laser was investigated within the net cavity dispersion ranging from -0.034 ps2 to +0.006 ps2. We show that the spectral and temporal phase of the pulses at both figure-nine outputs have clearly different characteristics. One of the laser outputs provides pulses with significantly better quality; nonetheless, the rejection output also offers ultrashort pulses with broad spectra. Pulses as short as 79 fs with an energy of 83 pJ were generated directly from the laser in the near-zero dispersion regime.