20 nJ 200 fs all-fiber highly chirped dissipative soliton oscillator

The dissipative solitons (DS) generated in fiber oscillators with mode-locking mechanism based on nonlinear polarization evolution in a single-mode fiber exhibit stability and energy limits at the cavity lengthening. We demonstrate an alternative approach that enables us to increase the cavity length of the DS oscillator up to 30 m, namely, by the use of a long section of polarization-maintaining (PM) fiber in an all-fiber cavity configuration. We have also identified the next limit of energy scaling related to the onset of Raman conversion of the DS spectrum. The maximum energy of the stable highly chirped DS realized with a 5.5 mu m core PM fiber, amounts to similar to 20 nJ in similar to 200 fs pulses after a grating compressor. As a next step, energy scaling by means of a fiber core enlargement is discussed. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America