Generation of 50-fs, 5-nJ pulses at 1.03 micrometre from a wave-breaking-free fiber laser

We report the generation of 6-nJ chirped pulses from a mode-locked Yb fiber laser at 1.03 micrometre. A linear anomalous-dispersion segment suppresses wave-breaking effects of solitonlike pulse shaping at high energies. The dechirped pulse duration is 50 fs, and the energy is 5 nJ. This laser produces twice the pulse energy and average power, and approximately five times the peak power, of the previous best mode-locked fiber laser. It is to our knowledge the first fiber laser that directly offers performance similar to that of solid-state lasers such as Ti:sapphire.