Effects of Yb:Er-codoping on suppressing self-pulsing in Er-doped fiber lasers

The effective pump rate for Er-doped fibers by using Yb codoping is analyzed. We show that the level of the pump power required to suppress the ion-pair induced self-pulsing in Er-doped fiber lasers can be significantly decreased by using Yb:Er-codoped fibers due to the increased effective pump rate. Our results show the potentiality of developing stable single-frequency or high-repetition-rate mode-locked fiber lasers by using high-gain Yb:Er-codoped fibers with laser diodes as pump sources.