All-Fiber Thulium-Doped Mode-Locked Lasers Based on the Nonlinear Amplifying Loop Mirror

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We report on thulium-doped all-fiber lasers based on the nonlinear amplifying loop mirror and mode-locked by both a semiconductor saturable absorber (SESAM) and single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT). An intracavity and external dispersion management was realized with the aid of a passive germanium-silicate fiber. SESAM mode-locked laser generates as short as 230-fs pulses with maximum average output power of 106 mW, corresponding to a 3.7 kW peak power and almost 2 nJ pulse energy. In contrast to SESAM-based laser, the SWCNT mode-locked laser generates 450-fs pulses of mW-level average output power respectively.