SESAM Mode-Locked, Environmentally Stable, and Compact Dissipative Soliton Fiber Laser

We report an environmentally stable and ultracompact dissipative soliton mode-locked fiber laser with a semiconductor-saturable absorber mirror (SESAM). A polarization-maintaining fiber loop mirror is used as the linear cavity end mirror, which also serves other purposes, such as a laser output coupler, a polarizer, and a pulse-shaping bandpass filter. Self-starting stable mode-locking operation with 2-nJ pulse energy and 24-ps pulsewidth is achieved. The laser emission shows high polarization extinction ratio of over 22 dB, with excellent stability.