1.7 μm band narrow-linewidth tunable Raman fiber lasers pumped by spectrum-sliced amplified spontaneous emission.

Abstract

A 1.7μm band tunable narrow-linewidth Raman fiber laser based on spectrally sliced amplified spontaneous emission (SS-ASE) and multiple filter structures is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. In this scheme, an SS-ASE source is employed as a pump source in order to avoid stimulated Brillouin scattering. The ring configuration includes a 500m long high nonlinear optical fiber and a 10km long dispersion shifted fiber as the gain medium. A segment of un-pumped polarization-maintaining erbium-doped fiber is used to modify the shape of the spectrum. Furthermore, a nonlinear polarization rotation scheme is applied as the wavelength selector to generate lasers. A high-finesse ring filter and a ring filter are used to narrow the linewidth of the laser, respectively. We demonstrate tuning capabilities of a single laser over 28nm between 1652nm and 1680nm by adjusting the polarization controller (PC) and tunable filter. The tunable laser has a 0.023nm effective linewidth with the high-finesse ring filter. The stable multi-wavelength laser operation of up to four wavelengths can be obtained by adjusting the PC carefully when the pump power increases.