Generation of high-repetition-rate pulse trains in a fiber laser through a twin-core fiber

We demonstrate the application of a twin-core fiber comb filter to the generation of high repetition rate pulse trains in fiber lasers. We have found experimentally that passive mode locking of the fiber laser can be established due to concurrent effects of a nearly periodic transmission function of the twin-core fiber filter and of the modulational instability. The period of the generated pulse train is determined by the intermodal dispersion of the twin-core fiber inserted into the fiber laser cavity. A repetition rate as high as 206 GHz was achieved. The width of the generated pulses was 2.7 ps.