PHOTONWARES CORP — National Aeronautics and Space Administration SBIR Phase I: S1

Description

The proposed compact and highly efficient mode-locked fiber ring laser is well suited for broadband THz spectrometer based on asynchronous optical sampling time-domain spectroscopy (TDS).nbsp; Our novel design overcomes the hurdle of environmental instability associated with previous mode-locked fiber lasers.nbsp;nbsp; Our design is a self-starting passively mode-locked fiber ring laser with a novel cavity configuration without using discrete fiber optical components. The special ring cavity design enables stable mode-locked operation over a large temperature range and mode maintaining without the need for polarization-adjusting devices. In Phase I, we will experimentally demonstrate the feasibility by constructing a bend-top mode-locked ring laser with a novel integrated optical component module.nbsp; The success feasibility prototyping will form the base for the fabrication of a fully functional fiber laser with 100 mW output power and lt;100 fs pulses as well as 100 MHz repetition rate with high stability in Phase II.