All-fiber acousto-optic modulator based on a cladding-etched optical fiber for active mode-locking

An all-fiber acousto-optic modulator (AOM), which features a compact structure and a low-driving voltage, is experimentally demonstrated for the active mode-locking of a fiber laser. The proposed AOM is based on the short length of the cladding-etched fiber, the ends of which are fixed on a slide glass. On top of the cladding-etched fiber, a piezoelectric transducer was overlaid. A chemical wet-etching technique, which is based on a mixed solution of NH₄F and (NH₄)₂SO₄, is used to reduce the fiber diameter down to ~25 µm, and the length of the etched section is only 0.5 cm. The fabricated device exhibited a modulation depth of 73.10% at an acoustic frequency of 918.9 kHz and a peak-to-peak electrical voltage of 10 V, while a laser beam was coupled at 1560 nm. By using the prepared AOM within an erbium-doped-fiber ring cavity, the mode-locked pulses with a temporal width of 2.66 ps were readily obtained at a repetition rate of 1.838 MHz.