Unidirectional dissipative soliton operation in an all-normal-dispersion Yb-doped fiber laser without an isolator

We demonstrate self-started unidirectional dissipative soliton operation and noise-like pulse operation in an all-normal-dispersion bidirectional Yb-doped fiber laser mode-locked by nonlinear polarization rotation. The laser works unidirectionally once mode-locking is achieved due to the cavity directional nonlinearity asymmetry along with the nonlinear polarization rotation mode-locking mechanism.