Fibre loop mirror with FBGs for the scanning range stabilisation in a fibre self-sweeping laser

Abstract

A new scheme is suggested for stabilising scanning range boundaries of a self-sweeping fibre laser with fibre Bragg gratings (FBGs) and a fibre loop mirror. The mechanism for stabilising stop and/or start scanning boundaries is based on the formation of additional selective losses and/or reflection depending on the FBG position relative to the fibre mirror. It is shown that the simultaneous implementation of two selectors reduces fluctuations of the self-sweeping boundaries to several picometres, which is less by one-two orders in magnitude as compared with a case when the FBGs are absent. The approach suggested allows one to enhance predictability of emission wavelength tuning in fibre self-sweeping lasers, which is very important in practical applications.