4942 Vol. 42, No.
23 / December 1 2017 / Optics Letters
Asynchronous and synchronous dual-wavelength
pulse generation in a passively mode-locked fiber
laser with a mode-locker
GUOQING HU,1,3,4 YINGLING PAN,1 XIN ZHAO,1 SIYAO YIN,1 MENG ZHANG,1
1
School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100083, China
2
Collaborative Innovation Center of Geospatial Technology, 129 Luoyu Road, Wuhan 430079, China
3
State Key Laboratory of Space-Ground Integrated Information Technology, Beijing 100095, China
4
Beijing Institute of Satellite Information Engineering, Beijing 100095, China
*Corresponding author: zhengzheng@buaa.edu.cn
Received 18 September 2017; accepted 18 October 2017; posted 3 November 2017 (Doc. ID 306978); published 28 November 2017
The evolution from asynchronous to synchronous dual-
wavelength pulse generation in a passively mode-locked
fiber laser is experimentally investigated by tailoring the in-
tracavity dispersion. Through tuning the intracavity-loss-
dependent gain profile and the birefringence-induced filter
effect, asynchronous dual-wavelength soliton pulses can be
generated until the intracavity anomalous dispersion is re-
duced to ∼8 fs∕nm. The transition from asynchronous to
synchronous pulse generation is then observed at an
elevated pump power in the presence of residual anomalous
dispersion, and it is shown that pulses are temporally
synchronized at the mode-locker in the cavity. Spectral
sidelobes are observed and could be attributed to the
four-wave-mixing effect between dual-wavelength pulses
at the carbon nanotube mode-locker. These results could
provide further insight into the design and realization of
such dual-wavelength ultrafast lasers for different applica-
tions such as dual-comb metrology as well as better under-
standing of the inter-pulse interactions in such dual-comb
lasers. © 2017 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (060.3510) Lasers, fiber; (140.4050) Mode-locked
lasers; (190.4370) Nonlinear optics, fibers.
https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.42.004942
While the simultaneous oscillation of multiple pulses in a pas-
sively mode-locked laser cavity has often been deemed as a
less-than-desired state of operation, more recent investigations
have shown some favorable characteristics of the pulses gener-
ated from such phenomena [1–5]. By propagating through the
same physical path in the cavity, the pulses experience similar
disturbance and could possess significantly better coherence
compared with those generated from different cavities [6–9].
As it has been realized that the presence of chromatic or polari-
zation mode dispersion in the fiber cavities can set the re-
petition rate of one pulse apart from that of the other, asynchro-
nous pulse trains with slightly different repetition rates can be
0146-9592/17/234942-04 Journal © 2017 Optical Society of America
Letter
AND ZHENG ZHENG1,2,*
generated [5,10,11]. By virtue of their mutual coherence and
stability in the repetition rate difference, such mode-locked
lasers have emerged as a low-complexity alternative to the fully
stabilized dual optical frequency comb systems [6]. A range of
applications from asynchronous optical sampling [12,13] and
terahertz frequency measurement [14] to broadband optical
and terahertz spectroscopy [7,15] has been demonstrated based
on dual-wavelength fiber lasers using carbon nanotube mode-
lockers. It would be desirable that the parameters of such dual-
wavelength lasers such as the pulse repetition rates (f r0 s) and
their difference (Δf r ) can be further tailored for the aforemen-
tioned and more applications. It had been shown that these
parameters are determined by the average intracavity dispersion
(Dave ) in a soliton cavity with a relatively large anomalous
dispersion [5,7]. Therefore, the repetition rate difference
Δf r of these lasers had been limited to the range of several
kHz using mostly standard single-mode fiber to hundreds of
Hz so far. Yet, whether this relationship would hold for much
lower Δf r at significantly reduced Dave remains a question of
much interest, to not only fulfill the scientific curiosity but to
address the needs of many dual-comb applications.
On the other hand, generating synchronous ultrashort
pulses at different center wavelengths can be used in applica-
tions such as Raman microscopy [16], terahertz generation
[17], and timing distribution [18]. Most of the schemes inves-
tigated so far are based on active [18–20] and/or passive syn-
chronization of two oscillators. The latter often involves
injecting an optical pulse train into the slave laser [21] or shar-
ing a common saturable absorber (SA) [22,23]. Due to its satu-
rable nonlinear loss, SA had been shown to be able to inflict
significant delay on a pulse in the presence of another adjacent
one. By leveraging this effect, pulse synchronization had been
demonstrated, despite the presence of a small mismatch of
cavity lengths [22,23]. More recently, synchronous dual-
wavelength pulses were generated in a laser with two accurately
equalized branches [24] or multicore Yb-doped fiber that
spatially separated the pulse in it [25]. Mode-locking of both
longitudinal and transverse modes is even achieved in multi-
mode fiber lasers [26]. Synchronized dual-wavelength pulse
 Letter
generation in a single-mode fiber laser cavity with a completely
common path for both wavelengths has yet to be fully explored.
As shown in Fig. 1, the laser we investigate here is an all-
fiber ring cavity with a 40% output coupling ratio. A ∼0.5 m
long piece of erbium-doped fiber (EDF, Er 110) is pumped by
a 980 nm diode laser through a hybrid wavelength division
multiplexer and isolator (WDM  ISO). To enable the multi-
wavelength operation, an in-line-polarizer (ILP) with two
0.3 m polarization maintaining fiber (PMF) pigtails is used.
Along with a polarization controller (PC), it enables multiwa-
velength lasing by the Lyot filtering effect and intracavity loss
control [5]. There is a 1.26 m of dispersion compensation fiber
(DCF, DCF 38) in the cavity to reduce Dave . In order to vary
Dave , the length of single-mode fiber (SMF) in the cavity
(LSMFin ) can be trimmed. The dispersion parameters of the
WDM pigtail (0.17 m of HI1060 fiber), EDF, PMF, and
DCF are, respectively, estimated as 5.6, −9.6, 15.4, and
−38.5 fs∕nm∕m around 1530 nm, and the total dispersion
of these optical fibers, excluding the SMF, is estimated as
−43.5 fs∕nm. The mode-locker is a home-made single-wall car-
bon nanotube saturable absorber (SWNT-SA) on a fiber ferrule
whose transmission at 1540 nm is ∼8%, and a picture of the
ferrule end face is also shown in Fig. 1.
The laser output is monitored by an optical spectrum analyzer
(OSA, Agilent 86142B), an oscilloscope (Agilent MS07054A)
and a RF spectrum analyzer (ESA, Agilent N9320B) with
a 1 GHz photodetector (PD, New Focus 1611) as well as
a home-built second-harmonic intensity autocorrelator with a
fiber-pigtailed input.
With fine adjustment of the intracavity PC, polarization-
dependent loss control can be achieved due to the use of
ILP in the cavity. As the spectral gain profile of EDF is strongly
affected by its inversion level, it can be tuned through tuning
the intracavity loss [5]. Lyot filtering effect of ILP with PMF
[27] can further filter and control the lasing wavelengths. Thus,
through the adjustment of intracavity PC and pump power,
dual-wavelength pulses can be generated in the 1530 and
1545 nm regions.
In our experiments, when LSMFin is larger than 3.32 m, i.e.,
the total intracavity dispersion is >8 fs∕nm, asynchronous dual-
wavelength pulses centered around 1530 and 1545 nm can be
observed. At LSMFin of 3.32 m, when pumped at 80 mW, dual-
wavelength soliton pulses centered at 1532.6 nm (λ1 ) and
1544.1 nm (λ2 ) with 3 dB bandwidths of 2.6 nm (Δλ1 ) and
3.9 nm (Δλ2 ) are observed, as shown in Fig. 2(a). Such pulses
have their corresponding repetition rates of 35.30925 MHz
(f r1 ) and 35.30914 MHz (f r2 ), with a difference Δf r of
Fig. 1. Configuration of the dual-wavelength mode-locked fiber laser.
Vol. 42, No. 23 / December 1 2017 / Optics Letters 4943
Fig. 2. (a) Optical spectrum. (b) RF spectrum of the asynchronous
dual-wavelength laser output when LSMFin is 3.32 m. The autocorre-
lation curves of (c) 1532.6- and (d) 1544.1-nm pulses.
110 Hz. Their RF spectra are shown in Fig. 2(b). After separated
by a wavelength division multiplexer (WDM) with a passband
between 1522.5 and 1537.5 nm and transmitted through ∼4 m
SMF, their pulse widths are measured by the autocorrelator,
showing 1 ps and 0.8 ps pulse width, respectively [assuming
sec2 shapes, see Figs. 2(c) and 2(d)].
In the above soliton regime, the total dispersion, i.e., the
product of the average dispersion and cavity length
(Dave  L), of the cavity could be proportional to the temporal
walk-off per roundtrip Δt r  Δf r ∕f r1  f r2  between the
dual-wavelength pulses [12]. Therefore, it is expected that
Δt r would vary by changing the length of SMF and, thus,
the total dispersion in the cavity. While LSMFin is reduced from
∼6 m to 3.32 m, the total dispersion drops by nearly seven
folds. The measured f r , Δf r , and Δλ at different LSMFin
are also shown in Fig. 3(a). While f r continuously increases
at shorter LSMFin, the lasing wavelengths and their separation
can slightly change based on the tuning condition of the laser,
and Δf r shows a corresponding decreasing yet fluctuating
trend. Yet, based on these data, the normalized temporal
walk-off Δt r ∕Δλ shows a highly linear relationship with the
decrease in LSMFin , as shown in Fig. 2(b). It can be seen that
the measured normalized walk-off data match very well with
the estimated total dispersion of the cavity (assuming SMF
dispersion of 15.4 fs/nm/m for that wavelength region).
This shows the capability to accurately design the difference
in the comb-tooth spacing through dispersion tailoring in such
dual-wavelength lasers.
Fig. 3. (a) Δλ, Δf r , and f r at different LSMFin . (b) Normalized tem-
poral walk-off versus LSMFin and the corresponding cavity dispersion.
 4944 Vol. 42, No. 23 / December 1 2017 / Optics Letters
However, when the intracavity dispersion gets closer to zero
but is still slightly anomalous, such a trend is changed. At LSMFin
of 3.32 m, when the pump power is increased to 130 mW and
the output pulse energy increases from ∼5 pJ to ∼19 pJ, the
spectral and temporal characteristics of the dual-wavelength out-
put are significantly changed. Under the elevated pump power,
two main spectral lobes centered at 1534.0 nm and 1547.5 nm
are significantly broadened, and their 3 dB bandwidths become
7.9 nm and 6.7 nm [see Fig. 4(a)], respectively. In contrast to
what is seen in Fig. 2(a), not only the spectral bandwidths
become much larger, but also five additional peaks centered
at 1493, 1507, 1520.5, 1561, and 1574 nm can be also ob-
served. The wavelength differences between neighboring peaks
are almost the same, which can slightly vary when the separation
between two main peaks varies. Furthermore, only one pulse
train is observed on the oscilloscope, as shown in Fig. 4(b).
Despite the existence of the remaining anomalous dispersion
verified by above asynchronous dual-wavelength pulses, this in-
dicates that synchronous pulses could have been emitted from
the laser.
To further validate the existence of two synchronous pulses,
the RF spectrum of the pulse trains is observed at both the fun-
damental repetition rate (f r ) and 82 times of f r with a fre-
quency resolution of 10 Hz [see Figs. 4(c) and 4(d)], which
all show just one frequency. This indicates the generation of
synchronous pulses.
To verify if such pulses are dual-wavelength ones such as in
the earlier case, first, the WDM filter is used to separate the
spectrum into two, and the filtered pulses are measured by
the autocorrelator. Results shown in Figs. 5(a) and 5(b) have
pulse widths of 1.2 ps and 1 ps, respectively (assuming sec2
shapes). In contrast with the above cases, the time–bandwidth
products are ∼1.2 and 0.76, suggesting the pulses are signifi-
cantly chirped, partially due to the dispersion of ∼5 m of SMF
the pulses go through before the autocorrelator.
Furthermore, the autocorrelation curve of the dual-
wavelength pulses is also measured by directly sending the laser
output into the autocorrelator through fiber connections.
A typical measured autocorrelation trace shows three peaks,
as seen in Fig. 5(c). This indicates the existence of two pulses
with a stable time delay, in this case, of 1.08 ps. Each peak is
narrower than those in Figs. 5(a) and 5(b), as the length of fiber
Fig. 4. (a) Optical spectrum; (b) oscilloscope trace; (c) and (d) RF
spectrum (f r  35.30938 MHz) of the laser output when LSMFin is
3.32 m and the pump power reaches 130 mW.
Letter
Fig. 5. AC curves of (a) 1534 nm, (b) 1547.5 nm pulse, and (c) un-
filtered laser output when L0 is 3.24 m and the pump power is
130 mW. (d) Measured time delay between the pulses as L0 is varied.
out of the cavity is reduced to ∼3 m by skipping some com-
ponents, like the WDM filter, here.
We note there is significant SMF from the output coupler of
the laser to the autocorrelator; in order to further identify the
nature of these two pulses, we vary the length of SMF from the
laser output coupler to the autocorrelator (L0 ), and measure
the autocorrelation curve. While the results all show three
peaks, the pulse separation (τ) varies. The measured temporal
separation is plotted against L0 in Fig. 5(d). It shows a highly
linear curve, which can be fitted to a linear line with a slope of
15.4 fs∕nm∕m  13.5 nm. Note that 13.5 nm is the center
wavelength separation of the dual-wavelength pulses. This in-
dicates that the two pulses shown by the autocorrelation are
indeed two pulses with different center wavelengths, instead
of a pair of bound solitons with the same center wavelength;
though the latter could also show similar spectral and temporal
features. It is also shown that it is the dispersion of SMF that
results in the time delay between them. Additionally, we note
that the intercept with the x axis is −1.76 m for the extrapo-
lated fitting curve, and 1.76 m happens to be the length of SMF
between the SWNT-SA in our laser cavity and the output cou-
pler. Therefore, this could be the experimental proof that the
dual-wavelength pulses are synchronized at the SWNT-SA. It is
noted that, at LSMFin less than 3.32 m, only synchronous dual-
wavelength pulses can be generated. This suggests that a stronger
nonlinear effect of SWNT-SA under higher pulse energy could
attribute to the synchronization of the dual-wavelength pulses de-
spite the existence of residual cavity dispersion. Such a mechanism
has been observed in semiconductor- [28] and nanomaterial-
based SA’s [22,23,25]. Two pulses with a small enough relative
delay can be synchronized at a shared SA due to the modulation
of SA’s nonlinear loss [28], which is also highly dependent on the
pulse energy. This indicates that a certain lower limit of Δf r may
exist for dual-wavelength laser with a mode-locker.
While the above experimental observation and discussion
suggest that two main spectral peaks correspond to two pulses
at the respective center wavelengths, there are several additional
spectral sidelobes, which are at least 10 dB weaker, some of
them sitting outside of the EDF gain profile. It is speculated
 Letter
that they could be the cascaded four-wavelength mixing (FWM)
sidebands generated by the dual-wavelength pulses when they
collide and interact at the SWNT-SA. Similar FWM phenomena
based on the high third-order nonlinearity of SWNT-SAs have
previously been reported [29,30]. This could be the first dem-
onstration of intracavity FWM between synchronous dual-
wavelength pulses from a simple, completely common-path
mode-locked cavity. It may have further intriguing implications
for manipulating nonlinearity within such a cavity to generate
signals at other more appealing wavelengths.
In summary, here we demonstrate that the intracavity temporal
walk-off between dual-wavelength pulses can be accurately con-
trolled under the soliton regime through the adjustment of cavity
chromatic dispersion. The transition between asynchronous to
synchronous pulse generation is observed at higher pulse energy
under low anomalous dispersion. Our results show that the use of
a physical mode-locker may lead to not only synchronization of
dual-wavelength pulses when the round-trip delay difference gets
small but also small nonlinear cross talk between the temporally
synchronized dual-wavelength pulses through FWM. We note
that these effects are observed by using an SWNT-SA with much
larger nonlinearity than normal [5,7] and at higher pulse energy.
Thus, the above phenomena could also be tailored or avoided
through the appropriate laser design. These results could shed fur-
ther light on the interaction of such dual-wavelength pulses in a
common-path laser cavity, which are now becoming an increas-
ingly interesting question, thanks to the emergence of novel
single-cavity, dual-comb sources and applications [7].
Funding. National Natural Science Foundation of China
(NSFC) (61435002, 61505005, 61521091, 61675014,
61675015); Fundamental Research Funds for the Central
Universities.
REFERENCES
1. V. J. Matsas, T. P. Newson, D. J. Richardson, and D. N. Payne,
Electron. Lett. 28, 1391 (1992).
2. D. U. Noske, M. J. Guy, K. Rottwitt, R. Kashyap, and J. R. Taylor, Opt.
Commun. 108, 297 (1994).
3. O. G. Okhotnikov and M. Guina, Opt. Lett. 25, 1624 (2000).
4. H. Zhang, D. Y. Tang, X. Wu, and L. M. Zhao, Opt. Express 17, 12692
(2009).
5. X. Zhao, Z. Zheng, L. Liu, Y. Liu, Y. Jiang, X. Yang, and J. Zhu, Opt.
Express 19, 1168 (2011).
6. I. Coddington, N. Newbury, and W. Swann, Optica 3, 414 (2016).
Vol. 42, No. 23 / December 1 2017 / Optics Letters 4945
7. X. Zhao, G. Hu, B. Zhao, C. Li, Y. Pan, Y. Liu, T. Yasui, and Z. Zheng,
Opt. Express 24, 21833 (2016).
8. T. Ideguchi, T. Nakamura, Y. Kobayashi, and K. Goda, Optica 3, 748
(2016).
9. S. Mehravar, R. Norwood, N. Peyghambarian, and K. Kieu, Appl.
Phys. Lett. 108, 231104 (2016).
10. Z. Gong, X. Zhao, G. Hu, J. Liu, and Z. Zheng, in Conference on
Lasers and Electro-Optics (Optical Society of America, 2014),
paper JTh2A.20.
11. Y. Liu, X. Zhao, G. Hu, C. Li, B. Zhao, and Z. Zheng, Opt. Express 24,
21392 (2016).
12. X. Zhao, Z. Zheng, L. Liu, Q. Wang, H. Chen, and J. Liu, Opt. Express
20, 25584 (2012).
13. X. Zhao, Z. Zheng, Y. Liu, J. Guan, L. Liu, and Y. Sun, in Conference
on Lasers and Electro-Optics (Optical Society of America, 2012),
paper CM2J.4.
14. G. Hu, T. Mizuguchi, X. Zhao, T. Minamikawa, T. Mizuno, Y. Yang, C.
Li, M. Bai, Z. Zheng, and T. Yasui, Sci. Rep. 7, 42082 (2017).
15. G. Hu, T. Mizuguchi, X. Zhao, T. Minamikawa, T. Li, Z. Zheng, and T.
Yasui, in Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (Optical Society
of America, 2017), paper SW4J.
16. F. Ganikhanov, S. Carrasco, X. Sunney Xie, M. Katz, W. Seitz, and D.
Kopf, Opt. Lett. 31, 1292 (2006).
17. A. Majkić, M. Zgonik, A. Petelin, M. Jazbinšek, B. Ruiz, C. Medrano,
and P. Günter, Appl. Phys. Lett. 105, 141115 (2014).
18. J. Kim, J. A. Cox, J. Chen, and F. X. Kärtner, Nat. Photonics 2, 733 (2008).
19. T. R. Schibli, J. Kim, O. Kuzucu, J. T. Gopinath, S. N. Tandon, G. S.
Petrich, L. A. Kolodziejski, J. G. Fujimoto, E. P. Ippen, and F. X.
Kaertner, Opt. Lett. 28, 947 (2003).
20. D. Yoshitomi and K. Torizuka, Opt. Express 22, 4091 (2014).
21. D. Yoshitomi, Y. Kobayashi, M. Kakehata, H. Takada, K. Torizuka, T.
Onuma, H. Yokoi, T. Sekiguchi, and S. Nakamura, Opt. Lett. 31, 3243
(2006).
22. M. Zhang, E. J. R. Kelleher, A. S. Pozharov, E. D. Obraztsova, S. V.
Popov, and J. R. Taylor, Opt. Lett. 36, 3984 (2011).
23. J. Sotor, G. Sobon, J. Tarka, I. Pasternak, A. Krajewska, W.
Strupinski, and K. M. Abramski, Opt. Express 22, 5536 (2014).
24. S. Wang, Z. Zhao, and Y. Kobayashi, Opt. Express 24, 28228 (2016).
25. P. Rigaud, V. Kermene, C. Simos, A. Desfarges-Berthelemot, G.
Bouwmans, L. Bigot, A. Hideur, and A. Barthelemy, Opt. Express
23, 25308 (2015).
26. L. G. Wright, D. N. Christodoulides, and F. W. Wise, Science 358, 94
(2017).
27. Y. Liu, X. Zhao, J. Liu, G. Hu, Z. Gong, and Z. Zheng, Opt. Express 22,
21012 (2014).
28. T. Walbaum, M. Löser, P. Gross, and C. Fallnich, Appl. Phys. B 102,
743 (2011).
29. B. Xu, A. Martinez, K. Fuse, and S. Yamashita, in Conference on
Lasers and Electro-Optics (Optical Society of America, 2011),
paper CMAA6.
30. B. Xu, M. Omura, M. Takiguchi, A. Martinez, T. Ishigure, S.
Yamashita, and T. Kuga, Opt. Express 21, 3651 (2013).