A saturable absorber Q-switched all-fiber ring laser

We propose a simple design of a saturable absorber Q-switched all-fiber ring laser. By locating a saturable absorber fiber in the intensity-enhanced section of a ring resonator, the laser is passively Q-switched. A set of location-dependent rate equations is established for Q-switching modeling. The design has been numerically and experimentally demonstrated using Er3+-doped fiber at the emission wavelength of 1550 nm. A single-mode Q-switched pulse with pulse energy of 0.37 mu J and pulse duration of 218 ns was achieved with 980-nm pump power near 7 mW. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America