Passive Q switching of Er-Yb fiber laser with semiconductor saturable absorber

Abstract

A high-performance A1GaInAs quantum-well saturable absorber is developed for passively Q-switched Er-Yb double-clad fiber lasers at 1560 nm. With an incident pump power of 13.5 W, an average output power of 1.26 W with a pulse repetition rate of 12 kHz is obtained. The maximum peak power is greater than 500 W. (C) 2008 Optical Society of America.