Tunable and narrow linewidth multi-wavelength Brill- ouin-erbium fiber laser using dual-wavelength pumping

Abstract:

We demonstrate a multi-wavelength Brillouin-erbium fiber laser (BEFL) with narrow linewidth and tunable wavelength interval using dual-wavelength Brillouin pumping. The generation of multi-wavelength output in BEFL is based on the combination of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) and four-wave mixing (FWM) effect in a fiber cavity. The tunable wavelength interval is determined by the artificially controlled wavelength interval of the pumping lasers. The BEFL could compress a 1 MHz pump laser to a 340 Hz Brillouin Stokes laser, which proves the BEFL has excellent capability of linewidth compression. An erbium-doped fiber pumped by 980 nm laser is inserted into the cavity to further amplify the Brillouin laser. The wideband multi-wavelength BEFL covering over 50 nm is successfully generated when the 980 nm pump power is 400 mW. These features of multi-wavelength BEFL provide an effective method for optical communication systems and optical fiber sensing.