Mode-locked ytterbium fiber lasers using a large modulation depth carbon nanotube saturable absorber without an additional spectral filter

We demonstrate an all-normal-dispersion ytterbium (Yb)-doped fiber laser mode-locked by a higher modulation depth carbon nanotube saturable absorber (CNT-SA) based on an evanescent field interaction scheme. The laser cavity consists of pure normal dispersion fibers without dispersion compensation and an additional spectral filter. It is exhibited that the higher modulation depth CNT-SA could contribute to stabilize the mode-locking operation within a limited range of pump power and generate the highly chirped pulses with a high-energy level in the cavity with large normal dispersion and strong nonlinearity. Stable mode-locked pulses with a maximal energy of 29 nJ with a 5.59 MHz repetition rate at the operating wavelength around 1085 nm have been obtained. The maximal time-bandwidth product is 262.4. The temporal and spectral characteristics of pulses versus pump power are demonstrated. The experimental results suggest that the CNT-SA provides a sufficient nonlinear loss to compensate high nonlinearity and catch up the gain at a different pump power and thus leads to the stable mode locking.