A mode-locked ytterbium doped holey fiber

Summary form only given. Holey fiber technology promises the development of a whole new range of fibers with exotic optical properties including endlessly single mode guidance, high optical nonlinearity and anomalous dispersion at short wavelengths. Many of these properties are of great relevance to fiber lasers. For example, the possibility of zero dispersion wavelength in the visible allows the possibility of Yb/sup 3+/ doped fiber based soliton lasers operating around 1 /spl mu/m. Recently the first results on continuous-wave laser action within a holey fiber have been reported. In this paper we describe what we believe to be the first mode-locked holey fiber laser.