Direct observation of two-color pulse dynamics in passively synchronized Er and Yb mode-locked fiber lasers

Abstract

We report direct experimental observation of interesting pulse synchronization dynamics in a cavity-combined Er and Yb mode-locked fiber lasers by measuring the relative position between the two-color pulses in the shared fiber section. The influence of the 1.03 mu m pulse on the 1.56 mu m single pulse as well as bound soliton pairs can be clearly identified as an effective phase modulation through the XPM effect with the walk-off effect taken into account. For the 1.56 mu m single pulse under synchronization, the dependence of the relative position variation and the center wavelength shift on the cavity mismatch detuning is found analogous to the typical characteristics of FM mode-locked lasers with modulation frequency detuning. Moreover, depending on the cavity mismatch, the passively synchronized 1.56 mu m bound soliton pairs are found to exhibit two different dynamical behaviors, i.e., phase-locked (in-phase) as well as non-phase-locked. The physical origins for these two kinds of bound soliton pairs are investigated experimentally by disclosing their locations with respective to the copropagating 1.03 mu m pulse. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America