Tunable mode-locked laser with micro-air gap cavity

A tunable mode-locked laser with a micro-air gap cavity acting as a high resolution tuning is proposed and demonstrated. The laser utilizes the nonlinear polarization technique in the cavity to obtain a reliable and stable mode locking over the whole tuning range at a resolution of 1 nm. The micro-air gap is constructed by aligning two fiber facets coaxially, and the variation of micro-air gap introduces a tuning mechanism where it changes the gain saturation compensation in the gain medium and thus induces wavelength shifting on the generated solitons.