We demonstrate a convenient approach to precisely tune the polarization state of a nonlinear-polarization-rotation mode-locked Yb-doped fiber laser by using an electronic polarization controller. It is shown to benefit self-starting of mode-locking states, with precise tuning of the spectral profile, pulse width, and carrier-envelope offset frequency. The pulse width changed linearly by 0.78 ps in the time domain, and the carrier-envelope offset frequency shifted $\sim 77.5\mathrm{MHz}$ in the frequency domain with a slight change of the driving voltage of 30.7 mV applied on the controller, corresponding to a polarization rotation of $0.0135\pi$. This facilitated precise and automatic regeneration of a particular mode-locking state by setting an accurate voltage at the polarization controller with a programmed microprocessor control unit.

Efficient nonlinear Bragg diffraction was observed as an intense infrared femtosecond pulse was focused on a plasma grating induced by interference between two ultraviolet femtosecond laser pulses in air. The preformed electrons inside the plasma grating were accelerated by subsequent intense infrared laser pulses, inducing further collisional ionization and significantly enhancing the local electron density.

The mid-infrared optical frequency comb is a powerful tool for gas sensing. In this study, we demonstrate a simple mid-infrared dual-comb spectrometer covering 3–4 μm in LiNbO₃ waveguides. Based on a low-power fiber laser system, the mid-infrared comb is achieved via intra-pulse difference frequency generation in the LiNbO₃ waveguide. We construct pre-chirp management before supercontinuum generation to control spatiotemporal alignment for pump and signal pulses. The supercontinuum is directly coupled into a chirped periodically poled LiNbO₃ waveguide for the 3–4 μm idler generation. A mid-infrared dual-comb spectrometer based on this approach provides a 100 MHz resolution over 25 THz coverage. To evaluate the applicability for spectroscopy, we measure the methane spectrum using the dual-comb spectrometer. The measured results are consistent with the HITRAN database, in which the root mean square of the residual is 3.2%. This proposed method is expected to develop integrated and robust mid-infrared dual-comb spectrometers on chip for sensing.

We report on a high-power third-order dispersion managed amplification system that delivers 33-fs pulses of 93.5 W at a repetition rate of 55 MHz. A pair of grisms are used as the pre-chirper for optimizing the third order dispersion (TOD) to group velocity dispersion (GVD) ratio. Detail experiments show that the use of a grsim pre-chirper significantly enhances the quality of the compressed pulses. We demonstrate that the third order dispersion of both the amplifier and the compressor can be compensated for by the grisms. Furthermore, the nonlinear phase shift introduced by spectral asymmetry during amplification can be restrained. This type of scheme, applied in our experiment, can be used for further development of a high power laser with ultrashort pulse and wide spectrum.

We report on the generation of 80-W average power 38-fs laser pulse from a 2-m polarization-maintaining large-mode-area photonic crystal fiber amplifier with high pump absorption coefficient. The pre-chirping management was demonstrated to play a key role on the self-similar amplification. The achieved spectral bandwidth and compressed pulse duration were determined by the interplay between self-phase modulation and finite gain bandwidth. The power scaling in the self-similar fiber amplifier system was eventually limited by the onset of stimulated Raman scattering.

We demonstrate a nonlinear polarization evolution (NPE) mode-locked polarization maintaining (PM) Yb-doped fiber laser with short NPE section segments by setting proper splicing angle. With a theoretical analysis, we propose that an appropriate deviation splicing angle exists to maximize the adjustable range of transmission modulation. The simulation results are highly consistent with theoretical conclusions. Experimentally, using the optimal splicing angle predicted by the theoretical calculation, we have achieved an environmentally stable mode-locking fiber laser at 111-MHz repetition rate with corresponding pulse energy of 0.47 nJ. Additionally, the noise performance of this PM fiber laser is characterized. The measured RMS timing jitter and amplitude noise are 6.41 fs and 0.0052% respectively (1 kHz-10 MHz), which are competitive to the low phase noise performance of the typical fiber laser.