Fs-Erbium-ring fiber laser as a simple training tool for enhancing laser engineering education

In this paper, different optical components, as well as different types and lengths of optical fibers have been tested, to achieve a most possible stable structure for a typical teaching-system. Above all, attention was paid to the resulting dispersion and to the easy adjustability of the whole system. Finally, a self-starting femtosecond laser with a pulse-width in between 200 fs - 400 fs was built and characterized with respect to its stability. These results indicate that the system is suitable for educational purposes. Additionally to the setup of the mode-locked ultrashort-pulse-laser, an autocorrelator for exact measurement of the pulse length has been set up.