A narrow-line Erbium-doped fiber laser and its application for testing fiber Bragg gratings

We inspect the spectral features of a diode-pumped Erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) with a Fabry-Perot cavity composed of a wavelength-selective coupler in the form of fiber Bragg grating (FBG) and wavelength-insensitive Faraday rotator mirror (FRM). High accuracy for the spectral measurements is provided with the use of an optical heterodyne scheme where the EDFL output is mixed with radiation from a narrow-line semiconductor laser, allowing the detection of the EDFL spectra with a sub-pm resolution. The heterodyne scheme permits precise measurements of the EDFL line-width as a function of the cavity length and pump power. It is worth noticing a narrow-line (a few pm) operation of the EDFL with a short length (<3 m) cavity and low (<5) excess of pump power over the laser threshold. The spectral response of the EDFL to a slow sinusoidal modulation of a physical length of the FBG coupler is analyzed and it is shown that as high as ∼1-nm modulation of the EDFL optical spectrum is attainable at maximal modulation amplitudes. The narrow-line EDFL with a modulated generation wavelength is hereby demonstrated to be a tool for high-resolution measurements of reflection spectra of FBGs, which is to the best of our knowledge a novel application of the EDFL.