Several new directions for ultrafast fiber lasers [Invited]

Ultrafast fiber lasers have the potential to make applications of ultrashort pulses widespread - techniques not only for scientists, but also for doctors, manufacturing engineers, and more. Today, this potential is only realized in refractive surgery and sonic feintosecond micromachining. The existing market for ultrafast lasers remains dominated by solid-state lasers, primarily Tr:sapphire, due to their superior performance. Recent advances show routes to ultrafast fiber sources that provide performance and capabilities equal to, and in some cases beyond, those of Ti:sapphire. in compact, versatile, low-cost devices. In this paper, we discuss the prospects for future ultrafast fiber lasers built on new kinds of pulse generation that capitalize on nonlinear dymunics We focus primarily on three promising directions: mode-locked oscillators that use nonlinearity to enhance performance; systems that use nonlinear pulse propagation to achieve ultrashort pulses without a mode-locked oscillator; and multimode fiber lasers that exploit nonlinearities in space and time to obtain unparalleled control over an electric field. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement