Broad and tunable multiwavelength fiber laser at the assistance of modulation-instability-assisted four-wave mixing

Based on a piece of highly-nonlinear near-zero-dispersion-flattened photonic crystal fiber (PCF), a broadly tunable multiwavelength erbium-doped fiber laser is proposed by using a bi-directionally pumping scheme. This kind of PCF induces the modulation-instability-assisted four-wave mixing to generate new wavelengths. The proposed laser with excellent stability is tunable and switchable by adjusting the fiber Bragg gratings and the variable optical attenuators. The outstanding merits of the proposed multiwavelength laser are the flexible tuning and the ultrabroad spectral range over 150 nm. Especially, the proposed laser source can work at the wavelength of less than 1460 nm, overcoming the limit of gain bandwidth of erbium-doped fiber.