Femtosecond ytterbium fiber laser with photonic crystal fiber for dispersion control

We demonstrate the use of photonic-crystal fiber for dispersion compensation in a soliton fiber laser. The anomalous dispersion provided by the photonic-crystal fiber enables us to construct a femtosecond fiber laser at 1 mum wavelength without prisms or diffraction gratings. The laser produces similar to100-fs pulses with 1 nJ energy, and is a major step toward environmentally-stable all-fiber devices at 1 mum. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.