Switchable and tunable linear cavity erbium-doped fiber laser based on FBGs embedded in Sagnac rings

Abstract

A switchable and tunable erbium-doped fiber laser with a linear cavity based on fiber Bragg gratings embedded in Sagnac rings is proposed and experimentally verified. Due to the stress birefringence effect and the polarized hole burning effect, which are introduced into the single-mode fiber in the polarization controllers (PCs) by the PCs, the designed laser can achieve seven kinds of laser-states output including three kinds of single-wavelength laser states, three kinds of dual-wavelength laser states and one kind of triple-wavelength laser state. The optical signal-to-noise ratios of the output wavelengths are all higher than 52 dB, and the wavelength shifts are all less than 0.04 nm. Furthermore, the temperature tuning of the wavelength range is also researched, which is about 1.2 nm. Due to advantages, such as low cost, simple structure, easy switching and multiple laser states, the designed laser has great application potential in laser radar, optical fiber sensing and so on.