Multi-wavelength Brillouin fiber laser using dual-cavity configuration

A simple technique for achieving multi-wavelength tunable multi-wavelength Brillouin fiber laser (BFL) based on dual-pass configuration is demonstrated. The BFL uses a piece of 10 km long non-zero dispersion shifted fiber (NZ-DSF) as a Brillouin gain medium to obtain odd-order Brillouin Stokes waves as an output with the line spacing of 0.16 nm (20 GHz) between each two consecutive waves by employing even-order Brillouin Stokes to improve output performance of the laser. With a BP of 15.3 dBm, at least 15 odd-order Brillouin Stokes and anti-Stokes lines are generated. The laser is room temperature stable, tunable over 50 nm wavelength range and has an optical signal to noise ratio of more than 30 dB at 1560 nm region. This Brillouin fiber laser can operate at any wavelength depending on the Brillouin pump (BP) wavelength used.     

Multi-wavelength Brillouin fiber laser generation using dual-pass approach

A simple and compact multi-wavelength tunable Brillouin fiber laser (BFL) in conjunction with dual-pass approach is proposed and experimentally compared with the output of a conventional single ring cavity architecture. This BFL source is demonstrated using 10 km long non-zero dispersion shifted fiber (NZ-DSF) as a Brillouin gain medium. By single ring cavity configuration, odd-order Brillouin Stokes lines appear in the backward direction with the line spacing 0.16 nm (∼20 GHz) between each two consecutive waves. However, this single ring cavity in conjunction with dual-pass configuration is able to generate Brillouin Stokes lines with 0.08 nm spacing by providing bi-directional oscillations of Brillouin waves in both forward and backward directions. With a Brillouin pump power of 15.3 dBm, approximately up to 17 Brillouin Stokes lines are generated which is tunable over 40 nm tuning range.     

Linear cavity Brillouin fiber laser with improved characteristics

A configuration for linear cavity Brillouin fiber laser (BFL) generation is demonstrated using a standard single-mode fiber, two optical circulators, a 3 dB coupler, and a 95/5 coupler to allow high efficiency. With a Brillouin pump (BP) power of 13 dBm, the laser peak power is 12.3 dB higher than a conventional linear cavity BFL at an upshifted wavelength of 0.086 nm from the BP wavelength. In addition, it is revealed that the BFL peak power can be higher than the transmitted BP peak power when the BP power exceeds the second Brillouin Stokes threshold power.     

0.16 nm spaced multi-wavelength Brillouin fiber laser in a figure-of-eight configuration

A stable and compact multi-wavelength Brillouin fiber laser (BFL) operating at room temperature is experimentally demonstrated using a 100 m long photonic crystal fiber (PCF) in conjunction with a figure-of-eight configuration. At a Brillouin pump (BP) level of 15.3 dBm, 7 simultaneous lines with 20 GHz or 0.16 nm line spacing is achieved by removing the odd-order Stokes lines. The anti-Stokes lines are also generated via four wave mixing process in the laser cavity. Compared with the Erbium-based multi-wavelength laser, this BFL has advantages in term of channel spacing and flexibility in the choice of operating wavelength. The output spectrum of the proposed BFL can be tuned by 80 nm, dependent on the availability of an appropriate BP source. The multi-wavelength BFL shows a good stability with power fluctuations of less than 0.5 dB over more than 3 h.     

Dual-wavelength Brillouin ring-cavity fiber laser with tunable channel spacing

We experimentally demonstrate a dual-wavelength Brillouin fiber laser configured a pre-amplified Brillouin pump and FBG filter in a ring-cavity. The Brillouin laser can generate 21 Brillouin Stokes with 0.084 nm spacing, the first-Stoke has a peak power of 2.19 dBm. By adjusting the TLS wavelength and FBG’s reflection wavelength from circulating in the ring-cavity, the generated output dual-wavelength is stabile and the channel spacing is tunable, the widest and narrowest channel spacing obtained is approximately 1.12 nm (139 GHz) and 0.084 nm (10.5 GHz).     

Gain and gain-flatness improved photonic crystal fiber Raman amplifier based on a dual-pass amplification configuration with single pump laser

A gain and gain-flatness improved L-band dual-pass Raman fiber amplifier (RFA) utilizing a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) as gain medium is demonstrated. By introducing complementary gain spectra of typical forward and backward pumping single-pass RFA using the same PCF, we finally achieve average net gain level of 22.5 dB with a ±0.8 dB flattening gain in 20-nm bandwidth from 1595 nm to 1615 nm, which is rare in RFAs with only one single pump and no flattening filter. Compared with the single-pass pump configurations, gain level, flatness and bandwidth are greatly improved by using the dual-pass amplification configuration. The limitation of this configuration caused by multi-path interference (MPI) noise and stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is also discussed.     

光纤光栅与受激布里渊信号的耦合特性

近年来,光纤布拉格光栅传感器与全分布式光纤传感器的融合技术受到了广泛关注,然而光纤布拉格光栅与布里渊信号之间的耦合特性鲜有报道。本文研究了光栅类型、波长、反射率及光纤的光致折射率对受激布里渊信号的影响规律,并探讨了空间分辨率对光纤布拉格光栅定位功能的影响。实验结果表明,在布里渊光时域分析系统中,光纤布拉格光栅处有尖锐的反射峰,而啁啾光栅、长周期光栅及光致折射率变化的光纤处均未出现尖锐的反射峰;光纤布拉格光栅反射率与受激布里渊散射功率谱无关;当光纤布拉格光栅的波长接近1 550 nm时,对受激布里渊频移测量的影响最大;在8 m的长度范围内,光纤布拉格光栅的定位误差约为4 cm,并且与空间分辨率无关。     

Investigation on stimulated Brillouin scattering characteristics in a highly doped Bismuth-based Erbium-doped fiber

Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) characteristics in a 49 cm long highly doped Bismuth-based Erbium doped fiber (Bi-EDF) is investigated in the ring and linear cavity configurations. At Brillouin pump (BP) power of 6 dBm, the Brillouin laser peak power of the optimized ring Brillouin Erbium fiber laser (BEFL) is obtained at 23 dB higher than the peak power of the conventional linear cavity at an up shifted wavelength of 0.08 nm. This Bi-EDF ring cavity operates at nearly 1563 nm wavelength region, which is up-shifted by 0.08 nm from the Brillouin pump wavelength with the side mode suppression ratios (SMSR) of 29 and 23 dB in the forward and backward directions, respectively.     

Bi-directional dual-wavelength Brillouin lasing in a hybrid fiber ring cavity

In this paper, a novel Brillouin fiber laser (BFL) is proposed based on the hybrid fiber ring cavity composed of two types of fibers with different Brillouin shifts. Single mode fiber (SMF) and truewave fiber (TWF) are used in our experiments. Bi-directional dual-wavelength Brillouin lasing is achieved in the hybrid fiber ring cavity. The lasing lights along the two directions come from the Stokes waves generated in the two fibers, respectively, with different Brillouin shifts, however, they share the same fiber ring cavity. The BFL based on the hybrid fiber ring cavity provides a simple possible way to realize Brillouin fiber optical gyroscopes (BFOGs) without lock-in effect.     

Control of four-wave mixing phase-matching condition using the Brillouin slow-light effect in fibers

All-optical control of the phase-matching condition in four-wave mixing (FWM) processes is demonstrated using the Brillouin slow-light effect in optical fibers. A counterpropagating stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) pump has been used to control the phase velocity of the FWM pump in a wavelength conversion scheme. Both experimental results and theoretical simulations show an SBS-controlled 20 dB difference on the wavelength conversion efficiency.     

Two-Frequency Brillouin Fiber Laser Controlled by Temperature Difference in Fiber Ring Resonator

A Brillouin fiber laser (BFL) consisting of a fiber ring resonator with different fiber temperatures emits two-frequency light output. The two-frequency BFL yields an optical beat output which can be utilized as an optical frequency shifter. The output beat frequency is controllable by the temperature difference in the fiber ring resonator and changes with a step of a resonant frequency interval of BFL. The temperature dependence of the BFL output frequency was 2.4 MHz/°C. The stability of the output beat frequency to the temperature fluctuation was estimated as 1.04°C/2.5 MHz.     

15波长输出的布里渊掺铒光纤激光器

多波长布里渊掺铒光纤激光器是一种新型的多波长光纤激光器,其原理是利用受激布里渊增益和掺铒光纤的线性增益,可以在常温下得到波长间隔约为0．08nm(～10GHz)的多波长输出。报道的布里渊掺铒光纤激光器,在布里渊抽运功率为1．7mW、980nm抽运功率为300mW的情况下得到稳定的15个波长(间隔～10GHz)的输出,这种激光器用作光传感器、光谱分析仪以及密集波分复用系统的光源。实验发现,输出波长的个数随着980nm抽运功率的增大而增加。另外,布里渊掺铒光纤激光器的信号功率主要来自于掺铒光纤的增益,而布里渊增益对它的影响不大。     

Generation of flat-top waveform in the time domain based on stimulated Brillouin scattering

A method of generating a flat-top waveform in the time domain based on stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is proposed. The transmitted pulses are simulated with pump wavelength at 1064 nm and 532 nm, respectively, and validated in the experiment performed with the Nd:YAG seed-injected laser. The experimental results agree well with the theoretical simulation. With 532 nm pump wavelength, the top of the transmitted pulse is almost a platform, while there is a peak in the front and a platform in the back with 1064 nm pump wavelength. The mechanism behind the generation of flat-top waveform with 532 nm pump wavelength is analyzed in details. PACS 42.65-k; 42.65.Es; 42.65.Hw     

基于光纤环形激光器和光放大的100 km光纤布拉格光栅传感系统

在基于掺铒光纤-拉曼混合放大的可调光纤环形激光器的光纤布拉格光栅(FBG)传感系统结构基础上,提出了延长传感距离的新方法。该方法以环形掺铒光纤激光器作为光源,采用双波长拉曼放大的方法对信号进行低噪声的双向放大,系统中间的两段掺铒光纤再利用剩余的抽运功率产生自发辐射光和放大传感信号,使得整个系统能够在超长的传感距离上获得很高的信噪比。实验表明使用一只40 mW的掺铒光纤放大(EDFA)抽运源、一只170 mW的拉曼抽运源和一只2 W的拉曼抽运源,可以使整个系统的传感距离达到100km,并且传感系统的光纤布拉格光栅反射信号均能获得超过57 dB的优良信噪比,从而实现在超长距离上的光纤布拉格光栅传感。     

Tunable microwave generation based on a Brillouin fiber ring laser and reflected pump

A simple approach for photonic generation of a tunable microwave signal is proposed and successfully demonstrated. By mixing the output from a single-longitudinal-mode Brillouin fiber ring laser with the reflected laser pump at photodetector, a microwave signal at the Brillouin shift can be obtained. Since the Brillouin shift can be changed by tuning the pump wavelength, tunable microwave can be generated. As a result a microwave signal tunable from 10.39 to 10.67 GHz has been achieved, with linewidth less than 600 KHz.     

Improvement of four-wave mixing-based wavelength conversion efficiency in dispersion shifted fiber by 40-GHz clock pumping

40-GHz clock modulated signal as a pump to improve the efficiency of four-wave mixing (FWM)-based wavelength conversion in a 26.5-km dispersion shifted fiber (DSF) is investigated. The experimental results demonstrate that the conjugated FWM component has higher intensity with the clock pumping than that with the continuous-wave (CW) light pumping. The improvement of FWM-based wavelength conversion efficiency is negligible when the pump power is less than Brillouin threshold. But when the pump power is greater than Brillouin threshold, the improvement becomes significant and increases with the increment of pump power. The improvement can increase up to 9 dB if pump power reaches 17 dBm.     

Effects of output coupler reflectivity on the performance of a linear cavity Brillouin/erbium fiber laser

The effect of output coupler reflectivity (or output coupling ratio) on the performance of a linear cavity Brillouin/erbium fiber laser (BEFL) is demonstrated. The operating wavelength, output laser power and number of channels vary with changes in the coupling ratio in the linear cavity system. The optimum BEFL operation is obtained with an output coupling of 40%, i.e., 60% of the laser power is allowed to oscillate in the cavity. A stable laser comb consisting of up to 40 channels with line spacings of approximately 0.09 nm are obtained at the Brillouin pump and 980 nm pump with powers of 2.5 mW and 100 mW, respectively. The linear cavity BEFL has the potential to be used in inexpensive wavelength division multiplexing system.      

Wavelength switchable all-fiber comb filter using a dual-pass Mach-Zehnder interferometer and its application in multiwavelength laser

A novel wavelength switchable all-fiber comb filter based on a dual-pass Mach-Zehnder (M-Z) interferometer is proposed and demonstrated. The proposed filter consists of a rotatable polarizer and a standard dual-pass M-Z interferometer composed of two 3-dB fiber couplers with a polarization controller (PC) in one arm. When the PC is properly set, the wavelength switchable operation is achieved by adjusting the polarization state of the input light. Theoretical calculation is verified by the experimental results. As applications, the proposed comb filter is incorporated into a fiber ring laser to generate wavelength switchable multiwavelength lasing.     

Brillouin amplification and lasing in a single-mode As2Se3 chalcogenide fiber

Brillouin amplification and lasing are demonstrated in a single-mode As2Se3 chalcogenide fiber. A Brillouin gain of 42 dB was measured in a 4.9 m long fiber for a pump power of 68 mW at a 1.56 mum wavelength. In addition, a compact As2Se3 fiber-based Brillouin laser with a threshold power of 35 mW and a slope efficiency of 38% for nonresonant pumping is demonstrated.     

Operation of brillouin fiber laser in the O-band region as compared to that in the C-band region

A first time O band Brillouin fiber laser is demonstrated and compared with the C band Brillouin fiber laser. By utilizing a 20 km True wave fiber (TWF), the experiment demonstrated four Brillouin lines generated from the simple set-up of Brillouin fiber laser. We compared the threshold between the Brillouin pump wavelength at 1310 nm which represent O band region and 1550 nm for C band region. It shows that the Brillouin threshold at O band region is smaller that C band. The channels spacing between these two bands are also different, where O band have 12.72 GHz spacing while 1550 nm have 10.25 GHz spacing.