Passively Mode-Locked Fiber Laser with a Sub-Megahertz Repetition Rate

We demonstrate an ultra-long cavity by which an all-fiber erbium-doped fiber laser is passively mode-locked by nonlinear polarization rotation. The length of the resonant cavity amounts to 466 m, which can be achieved by incorporating a 420 m highly nonlinear fiber. The laser generates stable mode-locked pulses with a 444 kHz fundamental repetition rate. A near transform-limited subpicosecond pulse is obtained without any dispersion compensation. The maximum average power of the output pulses is 5.16 mW, which corresponds to a per-pulse energy of 11.62 nJ.