High-resolution analysis of the wavelength stopping effect in a self-sweeping fiber laser

Abstract

We experimentally investigate for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, wavelength stopping, as well as slow reverse sweeping regimes in a self-sweeping fiber laser with a high temporal and spectral resolution, with a heterodyne technique. The experiments have shown that reverse sweeping, in fact, is a drifting series of short normal scans consisting of 5–7 pulses and there is no drift of central wavelength in the case of wavelength stopping. An effective spectral width of the mode set of the investigated fiber laser can be estimated as ~0.2 and ~30 MHz in the case of normal and reverse sweeping, respectively. An influence of absorption as well as gain and refractive index dynamical gratings on the wavelength stopping effect is also experimentally demonstrated.