High-performance tunable, self-similar fiber laser

We report a tunability study of a mode-locked Yb-doped self-similar fiber laser. The center wavelength is tunable from 1030 to 1100 nm without losing mode locking by adjusting a narrow intracavity spectral filter. Undesirable amplified spontaneous emission is suppressed by heating up the gain fiber. As a tunable mode-locked fiber laser, the performance (∼100 fs and ∼4 nJ) is exceptional owing to a unique self-similar pulse evolution.