Mapping Mode-Locking Regimes in a Polarization-Maintaining Er-Doped Fiber Laser

We present the performance of an all polarization-maintaining Erbium-doped fiber laser mode-locked by a multilayer graphene based saturable absorber. The cavity incorporates a Martinez-type compressor, based on a transmission grating, which allows for continuous tuning of the net cavity dispersion as well as spectral filtering. By adjusting the dispersion and the spectral bandwidth, we could operate the laser in the soliton, the dispersion managed soliton and the absorber-limited pulse regimes. The pulse durations from the laser ranged between 338 fs to 2.1 ps and the laser could be operated at nearly constant output powers in the anomalous and the normal dispersion regimes. We also conducted stability analyses based on dispersive Fourier transform measurements in the different operating regimes. Comparison of the collected spectra reveals that the soliton regime had the best overall stability.