Seminars Archive

Nonlinearity Engineering of Mode-locked Fiber Lasers: Development of highly stable mode-locked fiber lasers

Abstract
Ultrafast science impacts on nearly all areas of modern technology, and femtosecond lasers are invaluable tools in applications covering diverse fields such as materials processing, biomedical imaging, and frequency metrology. Advances in ultrafast science have always gone hand-in-hand with developments in laser technology and theory. Until recently, fiber lasers have been drawing interest primarily due to their practical features, such as low cost, robustness, compactness and high average powers. However, these lasers are also emerging as highly stable and very low-noise laser sources, with considerable impact in frequency metrology as well as some impact in accelerator technologies. Much of the progress in mode-locking theory and development of new fiber laser oscillators has been channeled into maximizing the energy extraction, but analysis and understanding of the dynamics of these strongly nonlinear lasers is lacking in terms of how it affects low-noise operation, robustness and stability. This talk will focus on our efforts in understanding the noise generation processes in femtosecond fiber lasers as well as experimental development of low-noise laser systems.