Delivering dispersion-managed soliton and Q-switched pulse in fiber laser based on graphene and nonlinear optical loop mirror

• A bidirectional versatile fiber laser by using two circulators is proposed.
• Three operation mechanisms can be achieved by simply adjusting parameters.
• Dispersion managed soliton and Q-switched pulse are obtained simultaneously.
• Dispersion managed soliton and Q-switched pulse can be obtained, respectively.

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a bidirectional erbium-doped fiber laser delivering dispersion-managed soliton (DMS) and Q-switched pulse based on a graphene-polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and nonlinear optical loop mirror (NOLM) saturable absorbers (SAs). In proposed structure, the DMS is achieved in clockwise (CW) direction and Q-switched pulse is obtained in counter-clockwise (CCW) direction. By properly adjusting the intracavity attenuators (ATT) and polarizer controllers (PCs), DMS in the CW direction and Q-switched pulse in the CCW direction can be obtained, respectively or simultaneously. The DMS with full width at half maximum (FWHM) of ~480 fs, signal to noise ratio (SNR) of ~60 dB and repetition frequency about 3.907 MHz is obtained. The Q-switched pulse is established at a pump power of 180 mW with a repetition rate of ~43.5 kHz and FWHM of ~8.18 μs. When the pump power is increased to 700 mW, Q-switched pulse with a repetition rate of ~107.1 kHz and FWHM of ~2.15 μs is generated. When the two type pulses are formed simultaneously, the maximum repetition rate of Q-switched pulse is 55.8 kHz and minimum FWHM is 2.81 μs, the DMS can be formed by properly adjusting PC and ATT in this case. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time that Q-switched pulse and DMS have been acquired respectively or simultaneously in a fiber laser.