Dual-stage soliton compression of a self-started additive pulse mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser for 48 fs pulse generation.

A dual-stage single-mode fiber (SMF) and large-effective-area fiber (LEAF) link for generating 48 fs pedestal-free pulses from a 40 MHz self-started additive pulse mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser (APM-EDFL) with output peak power and pulse energy of 16 kW and 500 pJ, respectively, is demonstrated. With the SMF+LEAF link, a maximum pulse-width compression ratio of 7 and an optimized pulse-energy confining ratio of up to 85% can be achieved, and the soliton self-frequency shift effect of the APM-EDFL pulse can be greatly suppressed.