Demonstration of multi-wavelength tunable fiber lasers based on a digital micromirror device processor.

Abstract

Based on a digital micromirror device (DMD) processor as the multi-wavelength narrow-band tunable filter, we demonstrate a multi-port tunable fiber laser through experiments. The key property of this laser is that any lasing wavelength channel from any arbitrary output port can be switched independently over the whole C-band, which is only driven by single DMD chip flexibly. All outputs display an excellent tuning capacity and high consistency in the whole C-band with a 0.02nm linewidth, 0.055nm wavelength tuning step, and side-mode suppression ratio greater than 60dB. Due to the automatic power control and polarization design, the power uniformity of output lasers is less than 0.008dB and the wavelength fluctuation is below 0.02nm within 2h at room temperature.