An efficient S-band brillouin erbium fiber laser with additional EDFA

A short wavelength band brillouin–erbium fiber laser (S-band BEFL) with enhanced characteristics is demonstrated using an additional erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) in the sub-loop of the laser system. Compared with the conventional BEFL without the additional EDFA, the enhanced BEFL has improved the number of channels as well as the flatness of the brillouin Stoke's peak power. By incorporating a double-pass EDFA, a stable output laser comb up to 8 channels was obtained at 1503 nm wavelength region with peak power variation for the first three Stokes is reduced from 30.9 to 5.4 dB. The incorporation of additional EDFA also increases the tuning range of the BEFL, which the maximum tuning range of 1.8 nm was obtained with the single-pass scheme. The S-band BEFL has constant spacing of 0.09 nm or 11 GHz, which has a potential application in dense wavelength division multiplexed system.     

Modelling of multi-line Brillouin/erbium fibre lasers

Laser sources with unique properties can be produced using a combination of nonlinear Brillouin gain in single-mode optical fibre (SMOF) and gain in erbium-doped fibre (EDF). Narrow bandwidth nonlinear gain from stimulated Brillouin scattering in SMOF determines the wavelength of operation, and gain in EDF allows efficient operation and large power extraction. Various cascading schemes based on the Brillouin/erbium fibre laser (BEFL) as well as distinctive multi-wavelength versions of the BEFL were proposed, being able to produce 10GHz combs of over 30 lines at 1550 nm. These multi-wavelength sources may be of use in future dense wavelength-division multiplexing systems. We explore fundamental aspects of BEFLs configured to generate multiple wavelengths with particular focus on the effects of the Brillouin and EDF pumps on the number of lines and the relationship between the intensities of the individual lines in the comb.     

Self-excited brillouin–erbium fiber laser for DWDM applications

The operation of the self-excited Brillouin/erbium fiber laser (BEFL) is experimentally demonstrated. It uses a forward pumped erbium-doped fiber (EDF) as a gain medium to generate a Brillouin-pump (BP) and amplify the Stokes frequency signals generated in a single-mode fiber (SMF). The operating wavelength varies with changes of coupling ratio of the looping arm. The optimum BEFL operation is obtained with a center wavelength at 1567.5 nm by looping back 20% of BEFL output into the other end of the SMF. The BEFL output power and number of lines increases gradually as 980-nm pump power increases. At the maximum 980-nm pump power of 118 mW, a stable and strong BEFL comb of up to 16 lines with 11 GHz spacing is demonstrated. The self-excited BEFL has the potential to be used in the future dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) communication system.