Thin-film dispersion compensator for mode-locked fiber lasers

We have demonstrated an ytterbium fiber laser that is compact and easy to align. Overall anomalous group-velocity dispersion was obtained by using a cavity with a thin-film etalon compensator. A self-starting passive mode-locking was ensured with semiconductor saturable absorber mirror providing a short pulse operation. The TFE is able to induce the necessary amount of anomalous dispersion with operation bandwidth sufficient to support picosecond soliton pulses. Without additional spectral filters, the operation wavelength becomes spontaneously locked to the low-loss - high anomalous dispersion region of the etalon.