Mode locking of a wavelength-swept laser.

Self-starting, stable mode-locked pulses can be generated from a wavelength-swept laser through the interplay between an intracavity scanning filter and self-phase modulation. From an Er3+-doped fiber laser employing a scanning Fabry-Perot filter, 100 ps optical pulses are obtained at a 12-MHz repetition rate with center wavelengths that are swept over 27 nm around 1.55 microm in 1 ms.