Sideband controllable soliton all-fiber ring laser passively mode-locked by nonlinear polarization rotation

A sideband controllable erbium‐doped fiber ring laser passively mode‐locked by using the nonlinear polarization rotation technique is reported. In our fiber laser, spectral sideband generation or suppression can be easily achieved by properly rotating the polarization controllers. When the sideband suppression achieved, the 3 dB bandwidth of 19.68 nm and the pulse duration of 132 fs were obtained. It is evident that the limitation of pulse duration resulting from the sideband was eliminated in our experiment. Based on the experimental results, we believed that the sideband control in the fiber laser is a result of the dispersive waves filtered by the passive polarizer in the laser cavity. (© 2009 by Astro Ltd., Published exclusively by WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA)