All-fiber passively Q-switched fiber laser with a Sm-doped fiber saturable absorber.

We demonstrate an all-fiber passively Q-switched Yb-doped laser using a piece of Sm-doped fiber as a saturable absorber. The laser was pumped by two 25W, 975 nm fiber coupled diodes and Q-switching was initiated when the ASE generated in the core of the gain fiber bleached the Sm-doped saturable absorber. The laser produced 1064 nm pulses with 28 μJ pulse energy and a 200 ns pulse width at a repetition rate of 100 kHz. The pulse energy and peak power are an order of magnitude higher than what previous reported which was also in all-fiber configuration. Effects of laser parameters, such as Sm-fiber length, pump power and duration on laser performance were presented and discussed. Stable Q-switched pulses were obtained at the repetition rate varying from 10 kHz to 100 kHz, which makes this laser suitable for different applications.