ANALYSIS OF ULTRA-SHORT PULSE-PROPAGATION IN A FIBER NONLINEAR AMPLIFYING LOOP MIRROR

Ultra-short (60-500 fs) Pulse propagation in a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror is compared for three kinds of single-mode fiber: standard, dispersion shifted and dispersion flattened fiber. The calculations were done using the nonlinear Schrodinger equation model of pulse propagation and progressively adding higher order terms, including third-order dispersion, self-steepening, and self-frequency shifting. It was found that these higher order terms have a significant impact on the performance of the nonlinear amplifying loop mirror for pulse durations less than approximately 300 fs. This study has direct application to the modeling and design of figure-eight lasers generating the shortest bandwidth limited pulses.