  We demonstrate strong performance enhancement of an all
polarization-maintaining fiber oscillator mode-locked using NPE in a linear
self-stabilized fiber interferometer via suppression of cross-phase modulation
(XPM). Numerical simulations reveal that XPM significantly affects the
saturable absorber dynamics resulting in distortions of mode-locked
steady-states. In the experiment, we construct an oscillator with XPM
suppression, employing an intra-cavity YVO4 crystal, and compare its
characteristics with a reference oscillator in standard configuration. It is
shown, that XPM suppression not only lowers the mode-locking threshold by more
than 40%, but further results in improved spectral pulse quality at the output
ports and reduced nonlinear loss of the artificial saturable absorber.
