Novel discretely tunable narrow linewidth fiber laser with uniform wavelength spacing

A novel configuration of the tunable fiber laser with uniform wavelength spacing in dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) application is proposed.The ring type tunable fiber laser consists of an all-fiber comb filter which determines the wavelength spacing,and a piece of adjustable fiber grating to select the discrete lasing wavelength for DWDM application.The proposed all-fiber ring type tunable laser has potential application in the DWDM and other optical systems due to its advantages such as narrow linewidth,easy tuning,uniform wavelength interval,etc..     

Flat amplitude multiwavelength Brillouin–Raman random fiber laser with a half-open cavity

In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate a novel configuration of multiwavelength Brillouin–Raman random fiber laser (MBRRFL) utilizing a half-open cavity. The laser resonator is formed by fiber loop mirror at the Brillouin pump (BP) side and random distributed Rayleigh backscattering in a 10 km dispersion compensating fiber. As a result, we are able to obtain a flat amplitude bandwidth of 16.8 nm from 1,550.0 to 1,566.8 nm built-in 210 uniform Brillouin Stokes lines with 0.08 nm spacing and an average OSNR of 13.5 dB. We also studied the influence of BP power and wavelength on the MBRRFL’s performance. Furthermore, comparing with the open cavity configuration, the discrepancies in power level and linewidth between neighboring channels are overcome by using the half-open cavity.     

Wavelength-tunable erbium-doped fiber laser with FBG and HiBi fiber loop mirror as reflectors

In this paper, a novel structure erbium-doped fiber laser with a linear cavity is demonstrated. The wavelength selective devices are a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) and a high birefringence (HiBi) fiber loop mirror. From 1543.8 to 1555.2 nm, 15 lasering wavelengths with side mode suppresion ratio (SMSR) > 54 dB and approximately 0.8-nm spacing have been obtained by using the comb-like reflection spectrum of fiber loop mirror and the intensity reaches about 2.5 dBm on an average. The reflectivity at different wavelengths can be tuned with different settings of polarization controller and the relative laser intensity can be controlled over a dynamic range of 13.5 dB.     

A self-seeded fiber laser incorporated with a fiber Bragg grating external cavity semiconductor laser

A self-seeded fiber laser incorporated with a fiber Bragg grating external cavity semiconductor laser (FBG-ECL) and a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) were reported in this paper. The MZI provided a Q-switching with response time in the order of micro-seconds. The FBG-ECL provided narrow pulses as seeds to shorten the Q-switched pulses. Experimentally, pulse width of 0.8 μs was measured, which was one fifth of the pulse width without self-seeding.     

Novel spectrum properties of the periodic π-phase-shifted fiber Bragg grating

A special periodic π-phase-shifted (π-PS) fiber Bragg grating (FBG) is proposed to achieve multichannel reflections. The Fourier analysis and the simulations based on the transfer matrix method show that this simple structure can generate multichannel response with high reflectivity. The reflectivity is much greater than that of the traditional sampled FBG for the same value of κL. Therefore the length of the fiber or the amplitude of refractive index modulation can be greatly reduced if such a periodic π-PS FBG is used instead of the traditional sampled FBG in the applications of comb filtering and optical wavelength division multiplexing. Besides, when the duty cycle is 0.5, this periodic π-PS FBG can create dual wavelength spectrum with high reflectivity.     

Random fiber laser operating at 1,115 nm

We experimentally demonstrate a random fiber laser operating at 1,115 nm using a LD-pumped Yb-doped fiber laser as the pump source. We achieve about 270 mW lasing output in a 50 km standard communication optical fiber with slope efficiency more than 28 %. A new wavelength is provided for the application of random distributed feedback fiber lasers as light sources.     

2 μm semiconductor disk laser with a heterodyne linewidth below 10 kHz

We demonstrate a 2 μm semiconductor disk laser emitting in a single longitudinal mode with a linewidth in the <10 kHz range. A heterodyne detection scheme was used for precise linewidth measurements. In these experiments, the output beams of two identical laser cavities were superposed in order to generate a beat note signal on a photodiode. In the absence of active frequency stabilization, a linewidth of 45 kHz was measured at an output power of 100 mW. When using a frequency stabilization consisting of a feedback loop with a Fabry-Perot interferometer as wavelength reference, the linewidth could be further reduced to 9 kHz.     

Hybrid-type passively and actively modelocked fiber laser with a DI-NOLM

We present a 10-GHz hybrid actively and passively mode-locked fiber ring laser with a dispersion im-balanced nonlinear loop mirror (DI-NOLM), whose nonlinear switching characteristic can make the laser operate at additive pulse modelocking (APM) mode or additive pulse limiting (APL) mode. When the laser operated at APM, 5.45 ps of transform-limited pulse series were obtained. When the laser was biased at APL region, supermode noise was suppressed and the laser output was more stable.     

A 110-W fiber laser with homemade double-clad fiber

A high-power ytterbium-doped fiber laser (YDFL) with homemade double-clad fiber (DCF) is introduced in this letter. The geometric parameter and laser characteristics of the fiber have been studied. With oneend-pumping scheme, pumped by a high-power laser diode with launching power of 280 W, a maximum continuous wave (CW) output of 110 W is obtained with an optical-to-optical efficiency of 40%.     

Random distributed feedback Raman fiber laser operating in a 1.2 μm wavelength range

The random distributed feedback fiber laser operating via the stimulated Raman scattering and random distributed feedback based on the Rayleigh scattering is demonstrated in the 1.2 μm frequency band. The RDFB fiber laser generates at 1174 nm up to 2.4 W of output power with corresponding slope efficiency more than 30%. The output radiation has the spectral shape similar to the conventional Raman fiber lasers and spectral width less than 1.7 nm.     

Double random mirror Hi–Bi photonic crystal fiber Sagnac based multiwavelength fiber laser

In the present work, a multiwavelength Raman fiber laser based in a Sagnac configuration is presented. The Sagnac configuration is composed of a Hi–Bi photonic crystal fiber in the middle of two dispersion compensation fibers. The pump power induces two random mirrors to work in opposite directions in the Sagnac, leading to the amplified signal and the multiple scattering signals from the random mirror traveling through the Hi–Bi photonic crystal fiber in a counter-propagating way interfering in the output port.     

High power narrow linewidth laser at 556 nm for magneto-optical trapping of ytterbium

We present a high-power and narrow-linewidth laser for intercombination magneto-optical trapping of ytterbium (Yb) atoms using the 6s^{2 1}S₀–6s6p ³P₁ transition. The system generates 415 mW of continuous wave laser radiation at 556 nm with a linewidth of less than 100 kHz. It is based on a commercial 1 W fiber laser with a frequency doubling stage. Up to 58% frequency doubling efficiency is obtained at an input power of 0.5 W by using a lithium triborate crystal as a nonlinear medium. The system has been successfully used for laser cooling of Yb atoms. PACS  42.55.Wd; 42.60.By; 42.79.Nv     

Injection-switchable erbium-doped fiber laser with two output ports

An injection-switchable erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) with two output ports based on a ring structure is proposed. Wavelength switching together with the switching of the dominating output port of the fiber laser is achieved by controlling the power of a tunable injection laser. The characteristics of the wavelength switching for different levels of the pump laser power and different wavelengths of the injection laser are studied experimentally.     

Influence of laser linewidth on external-cavity frequency doubling efficiency of a 1.56μm master oscillator fiber power amplifier

By using an external-cavity frequency-doubling master oscillator fiber power amplifier (MOPA), a 700~mW continuous-wave single-frequency laser source at 780~nm is produced. It is shown that the frequency doubling efficiency is improved when the seed diode laser is optically locked to a resonant frequency of a confocal Fabry--Perot (F-P) cavity. This phenomenon can be attributed to the narrowing of the 1.56~μ m laser linewidth and explained by our presented theoretical model. The experimental results are found to be in good agreement with the theoretical predictions.     

Multiwavelength L-band fiber laser with bismuth-oxide EDF and photonic crystal fiber

A multiwavelength laser comb using a bismuth-based erbium-doped fiber and 50 m photonic crystal fiber is demonstrated in a ring cavity configuration. The fiber laser is solely pumped by a single 1455 nm Raman pump laser to exploit its higher power delivery compared to that of a single-mode laser diode pump. At 264 mW Raman pump power and 1 mW Brillouin pump power, 38 output channels in the L-band have been realized with an optical signal-to-noise ratio above 15 dB and a Stokes line spacing of 0.08 nm. The laser exhibits a tuning range of 12 nm and produces stable Stokes lines across the tuning range between Brillouin pump wavelengths of 1603 nm and 1615 nm.     

Mode-locked 2 μm fiber laser with a multi-walled carbon nanotube as a saturable absorber

We propose and demonstrate a passively mode-locked fiber laser operating at 1951.8 nm using a commercial thulium-doped fiber(TDF) laser, a homemade double-clad thulium–ytterbium co-doped fiber(TYDF)as the gain media, and a multi-walled carbon nanotube(MWCNT) based saturable absorber(SA). We prepare the MWCNT composite by mixing a homogeneous solution of MWCNTs with a diluted polyvinyl alcohol(PVA) polymer solution and then drying it at room temperature to form a film. The film is placed between two fiber connectors as a SA before it is integrated into a laser ring cavity. The cavity consists of a 2 m long TDF pumped by a 800 nm laser diode and a 15 m long homemade TYDF pumped by a 905 nm multimode laser diode. A stable mode-locking pulse with a repetition rate of 34.6 MHz and a pulse width of 10.79 ps is obtained when the 905 nm multimode pump power reaches 1.8–2.2 W, while the single-mode 800 nm pump power is fixed at 141.5 m W at all times. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported mode-locked fiber laser using a MWCNT-based SA.     

Erbium-doped CW and Q-switched fiber ring laser with fiber grating Michelson interferometer

The band-pass characteristic of fiber grating Michelson interferometer is analyzed, which acts as bothband-pass filter and Q-switch. An erbium-doped fiber ring laser based on fiber grating Michelsoninterferometer is implemented for producing single longitudinal mode CW operation with 5 MHz spectrallinewidth and up to 6 mW output power. In Q-switched operation, stable fiber laser output pulses withrepetition rate of 800 Hz, pulse width of 0.6 μs, average power of 1.8 mW and peak power of 3.4 W aredemonstrated. The peak power and average power of the Q-switched pulses are varied with the repetitionrate.     

Transverse-mode controlling of a large-mode-area multimode fiber laser

Coiling technique is used to control the transverse mode of a large-mode-area(LMA)multimode fiber laser.By winding the fiber to a coil with different radius,high-order modes of a multimode fiber laser are suppressed one by one and finally 15.4-W single-transverse-mode output is achieved when the coil radius is 20 mm.It is found that as the coil radius decreases,the beam quality of a multimode fiber laser gets better but the slope efficiency drops for higher-order modes are discriminated.During the experiment,as the coil radius of multimode fiber changes,output characteristic of the laser has been measured.Meanwhile, the mode loss of different modes is calculated theoretically.It is proved that the experimental measured results fit well with the theoretically calculated results.