Self-starting passive harmonic mode-locked femtosecond Yb/sup 3+/-doped fiber laser at 1030 nm

We demonstrate the first self-starting passively harmonic mode-locked femtosecond Yb/sup 3+/-doped fiber laser with up to 585 MHz scalable repetition rate and >45 dB of supermode suppression. 400 mW average power, /spl sim/240 fs pulses is achieved after amplification. Pulse-to-pulse jitter is characterized by optical cross correlation.