Stability calculations for the ytterbium-doped fiber laser passively mode-locked through nonlinear polarization rotation

Abstract

We investigate theoretically a fiber laser passively mode-locked with nonlinear polarization rotation. A unidirectional ring cavity is considered with a polarizer placed between two sets of a halfwave plate and a quarterwave plate. A master equation is derived and the stability of the continuous and mode-locked solutions is studied. In particular, the effect of the orientation of the four phase plates and of the polarizer on the mode-locking regime is investigated.