Ultrashort pulses at 920 nm are a highly desired light source in two-photon microscopy for the efficient excitation of green fluorescence protein. Although Nd^{3 +} -doped fibers have been utilized for 920-nm ultrashort pulse generation, the competitive amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) at 1.06 μm remains a significant challenge in improving their performance. Here, we demonstrate a coordination engineering strategy to tailor the properties of Nd^{3 +} -doped silica glass and fiber. By elevating the covalency between Nd^{3 +} and bonded anions via sulfur incorporation, the fiber gain performance at 920 nm is enhanced, and 1.06-μm ASE intensity is suppressed simultaneously. As a result, the continuous-wave laser efficiencies and signal-to-noise ratio at 920 nm by this fiber are significantly enhanced. Importantly, the stable picosecond pulses at 920 nm are produced by a passive mode-locking technique with a fundamental repetition rate up to 207 MHz, which, to the best of our knowledge, is the highest reported repetition rate realized by Nd^{3 +} -doped silica fibers. The presented strategy enriches the capacity of Nd^{3 +} -doped silica fiber in generating 920-nm ultrashort pulses for application in biophotonics, and it also provides a promising way to tune the properties of rare-earth ion-doped silica glasses and fibers toward ultrafast lasers.

In this Letter, the optical amplification characteristics of the home-made Bi/P co-doped silica fiber were systematically explored in the range of 1270–1360 nm. The maximum gain of 24.6 dB was obtained in the single-pass amplification device, and then improved to 38.3 dB in the double-pass amplification device for -30dBm signal power. In addition, we simultaneously investigated the laser performance of the fiber with the linear cavity. A slope efficiency of 16.4% at ∼1313nm was obtained with a maximum output power of about 133 mW under the input pump power of 869 mW at 1240 nm. As far as we know, it is the first laser reported based on the bismuth-doped fiber in China.