A passively mode-locked femtosecond soliton fiber laser at 1.5 microm with a CNT-doped polycarbonate saturable absorber.

We report a new 1.5 mum femtosecond fiber soliton laser incorporating a polymer saturable absorber that consists of polycarbonate (PC) with carbon nanotubes (CNTs). We installed the polymer in a fiber laser with a cavity length of 5.1 m, in which an erbium-doped fiber was used as the gain medium. Stable passive mode-locking was achieved for a pump power of 303 mW at 39 MHz, and a pulse width of 115 fs with an average output power of 3.4 mW was obtained.

147 fs, 51 MHz soliton fiber laser at 1.56 microm with a fiber-connector-type SWNT/P3HT saturable absorber.

We fabricated a fiber-connector-type saturable absorber in which SWNTs and P3HT (poly-3-hexylthiophene) were coated on the fiber connector end. This saturable absorber allowed us to realize a short laser cavity length. We used a soliton cavity configuration to generate the shortest pulse (147 fs) at the highest repetition rate (51 MHz) yet obtained with carbon nanotubes (CNT) related saturable absorbers.