Nonlinear polarization evolution (NPE) is among the most advanced techniques for obtaining ultrashort pulses with excellent optical performance. However, it is challenging to design environmentally stable NPE fiber oscillators using only polarization-maintaining (PM) fibers. Here, we use the same PM fiber and non-reciprocal phase shifter to design two different devices, which are capable of acting as effective NPE saturable absorbers (SAs) in two all-PM linear cavity fiber lasers. These two laser setups differ in the position of the non-reciprocal phase shifter, the presence of which is crucial for the proposed fiber lasers to reduce their mode-locking thresholds and achieve high repetition rates above 100 MHz. The mode-locking principle and pulse evolution in the laser cavity are investigated theoretically. The first all-PM fiber oscillator emits sub-200 fs stretched pulses with low peak powers. The second oscillator, with a simpler architecture, directly delivers stretched pulses with high peak powers, the spectral bandwidth greater than 30 nm, and the pulse duration less than 90 fs. To the best of our knowledge, 79 fs achieved in this design is the shortest pulse duration provided by PM fiber lasers using NPE mode-lockers.

We demonstrate a novel, robust and compact fiber laser mode-locked by nonlinear polarization evolution (NPE) in polarization-maintaining (PM) fibers. The reflectivity of the artificial saturable absorber (SA) is analyzed to explain the mode-locking mechanism in the laser cavity. Experimentally, three linear laser schemes that feature repetition rates 94 MHz, 124 MHz and 133 MHz are systematically investigated. When the pump power is 1100 mW, the 124-MHz laser cavity delivers highly stable pulses with a single-pulse energy of 0.92 nJ. After the compression, the pulse duration obtained from the 124-MHz fiber laser is 250 fs, while the corresponding transform-limited pulse duration is 124 fs. The highest fundamental repetition rate that could be achieved in our experiment is 133 MHz, as mentioned above. The noise characterization has been performed with different cavity lengths and therefore different net-cavity dispersion. The 68-fs timing jitter and the 0.01% relative intensity noise (RIN) of the 133-MHz fiber laser have been realized integrated from 1 kHz to 10 MHz. Furthermore, the root-mean-square (RMS) power fluctuation is 0.35% in 2 hours, which implies superior stability of the output power. Thus, this linear fiber oscillator provides a competitive low-noise light source for optical applications appropriate for complex environments.

Nonlinear epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) nanodevices featuring vanishing permittivity and CMOS-compatibility are attractive solutions for large-scale-integrated systems-on-chips. Such confined systems with unavoidable heat generation impose critical challenges for semiconductor-based ENZ performances. While their optical properties are temperature-sensitive, there is no systematic analysis on such crucial dependence. Here, we experimentally report the linear and nonlinear thermo-optic ENZ effects in indium tin oxide. We characterize its temperature-dependent optical properties with ENZ frequencies covering the telecommunication O-band, C-band, and 2-μm-band. Depending on the ENZ frequency, it exhibits an unprecedented 70–93-THz-broadband 660–955% enhancement over the conventional thermo-optic effect. The ENZ-induced fast-varying large group velocity dispersion up to 0.03–0.18 fs²nm⁻¹ and its temperature dependence are also observed for the first time. Remarkably, the thermo-optic nonlinearity demonstrates a 1113–2866% enhancement, on par with its reported ENZ-enhanced Kerr nonlinearity. Our work provides references for packaged ENZ-enabled photonic integrated circuit designs, as well as a new platform for nonlinear photonic applications and emulations.

We numerically demonstrate a feasible way to generate a high-repetition-rate ultrashort soliton train from a dual frequency beat signal on a chip-scale silicon waveguide. A train of well-separated solitons is formed in the designed novel tapered silicon waveguide. Through the self-similar pulse compression, the pulse duration of the input pulse train is compressed from 1.5625 ps to 123.4 fs at the telecomm wavelength. Besides, the pulse propagation consists of two stages: pulse shaping and pulse compression, where the raised-cosine pulse train is evolved into the hyperbolic secant pulse train and further realize an efficient self-similar compression. The results deepen our understanding of nonlinear propagation in silicon waveguides, and open the possibility of high-repetition-rate pulse trains functionalities for ultrahigh-capacity optical communication and micro-machining in a monolithic CMOS platform.