Strong optical bistability in ytterbium-doped fibre laser with reabsorption

The strong optical bistability in a ytterbium-doped fibre (YDF) laser is demonstrated, which is due to the saturable absorption of the unpumped YDF stage. The bistable regions of both the signal output and residual pump light are 320 mW within an antiphase manner with respect to each other. The signal output and residual pump light also exhibit self-pulsing instability. A bifurcated laser cavity configuration for switchable dual-wavelength generation is predicted based on the optical bistability of the residual pump power.