Tunable, femtosecond pulse source operating in the range 106–133 m based on an Yb^3+-doped holey fiber amplifier

We report soliton pulse formation and amplification and soliton-self-frequency shifting in an anomalously dispersive, Yb³⁺ -doped holey fiber amplifier seeded with pulses from an Yb³⁺ -doped, 1.06 µm fiber based mode-locked oscillator. Our fiber-based system provides a highly practical, all-diode-pumped, continuously tunable femtosecond pulse source operational in the important and difficult to reach wavelength range from 1.06 to 1.33 µm. In other experiments multipulse, multicolored soliton formation was observed with wavelength-shifted pulsed output to beyond 1.58 µm. Supercontinuum generation and nonlinear compression of pulses to 65 fs were also obtained with other configurations.