Wavelength-tunable optical short pulses with high sidemode suppression ratio generated by use of Bi-EDFA

Abstract

A bidirectional erbium-doped fiber amplifier (Bi-EDFA) has been used in a self-seeding scheme for wavelength-tunable optical short pulse generation. The pulse wavelength is selected and purified by use of two tunable Fabry-Perot (FP) optical filters with bandwidth of 0.11 nm and 99 pm respectively, while a constant repetition frequency of 1.045 GHz is maintained. The sidemode suppression ratio (SMSR) of the output pulses achieved is better than 40 dB over the wavelength tuning range of 33 nm. The system is simple and efficient, and a continuous wavelength tuning can be readily achieved.