Nanotube-Mode-Locked Fiber Laser Delivering Dispersion-Managed or Dissipative Solitons

We have proposed a bidirectional erbium-doped fiber laser delivering dispersion-managed soliton (DMS) or dissipative soliton (DS) based on a single-wall carbon nanotube mode-locker. In the proposed scheme, the net cavity dispersion approaches to zero in the counter-clockwise (CCW) direction while is normal in the clockwise (CW) direction. By properly adjusting the intracavity attenuators, DMS in the CCW direction and DS in the CW direction can be obtained, respectively. However, attributing to the cavity asymmetry between CCW and CW directions, simultaneous generation of DMS and DS is not achieved. Although the output DMS and DS almost have the same central wavelength, they exhibit distinct optical spectra, pulse durations, and repetition rates. The switchable all-fiber laser delivers two different types of ultra-short pulses, which significantly facilitates the practical applications.