Generation of bound states of three ultrashort pulses with a passively mode-locked high-power Yb-doped double-clad fiber laser

We report the generation of high-power ultrashort bound states of three pulses in an ytterbium-doped double-clad fiber laser. The laser is mode-locked through nonlinear polarization rotation technique in a unidirectional cavity configuration. A pair of diffraction grating is incorporated in the cavity to compensate for the normal dispersion of the fiber. The laser generates chirped bound states of three pulses with either equal or different time separations, with more than 500-pJ energy per pulse. These pulses are subsequently compressed to 100 fs with a compression factor of more than 40.