Wavelength and bandwidth tunable passively mode-locked fiber laser based on semiconductor saturable absorber mirror and liquid crystal on silicon device

Using a liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) device as tunable filter, we experimentally demonstrate a wavelength and bandwidth tunable passively mode-locked fiber laser. The key feature of this laser is that any wavelength with any bandwidth can be tuned independently over the whole C-band, which is flexibly driven by only a single LCoS chip. The outputs exhibit excellent tuning capacity and high consistency in the C-band, using a 0.1 nm wavelength-tuning step. The filter bandwidth can be set to any width within the wavelength range, while the pulse width varies from 9 to 50 ps. (paper)