Multiwavelength erbium-doped fiber laser using twin-core photonic crystal fiber

Abstract

We propose a novel multiwavelength erbium doped fiber laser incorporating a twin core photonic crystal fiber (TC PCF) based Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI). TC PCF based Mach-Zehnder inter ferometer acts as a wavelength selective comb filter in the laser cavity and shows polarization dependent spec tral response. The obtained channeled spectrum can be switched between two operation modes with two dif ferent multiwavelength intervals. The lasing wavelength spacing could be switched by adjusting internal polar ization controllers in the ring cavity. The proposed fiber laser can operate with two typical lasing wavelength spacing of 1.60 and 3.27 nm with a signal to noise ratio (SNR) over 30 dB. The temporal stability of laser output was also investigated.

All-fiber lasers through photonic crystal fibers

“…A tunable and switchable multi-wavelength erbium-doped fiber laser was accomplished by incorporating a highly nonlinear PCF in the ring cavity [70]. With a twin-core PCF a multiwavelength erbium-doped fiber laser was accomplished [71]. A multiwavelength source was demonstrated based on spectral splicing of supercontinuum light, generated on a PCF, using a FLM [72].…”

Combining comb-filters based on tapered fibers for selective lasing performance in erbium-doped fiber lasers

“…Another structure is the cascading of long period fiber gratings to form a MZFI, which have been used to achieve tunable and switchable multi-wavelength Er-doped fiber lasers [5][6][7][8]. Special structures as twin-core fibers built on silica and photonic crystal fibers have been developed as a MZFI for multi-wavelength lasers based on the PC technique [9,10]. More recently, MZFI based on tapered fibers have become a popular device in the pursuit of tunable and multi-wavelength fiber lasers, because of the feasibility in the manufacturing process and its straightforward implementation into fiber laser cavities.…”

Dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber laser with tunable wavelength spacing using a twin core fiber-based filter

“…Dual-wavelength erbium-doped fiber lasers (EDFLs) are widely used in optical fiber sensors [1][2][3][4] and microwave photonics generation [5,6]. In order to weaken the homogeneous gain broadening of the erbium-doped fiber (EDF), various techniques have been developed to achieve stable dual-wavelength or multi-wavelength oscillations, such as phase modulation [7], four-wave mixing (FWM) processes [8,9], nonlinear optical fiber loop mirrors [10], stimulated Brillouin scattering [11], and polarization hole burning (PHB) [12][13][14][15][16]. At the same time, various filters have been developed as wavelength selectors to obtain dual-wavelength EDFLs, such as fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs), two independent filters, and comb-like filters.…”

“…These additional devices would not only make the system complex but also induce a large insert loss, thereby decreasing the optical signal-to-noise ratio and output power. Comb-like filters have also been investigated for dual-wavelength EDFLs, such as Sagnac loop mirrors (SLMs), which incorporate a section of high-birefringence fiber [14,15,26]; modal interferometers [16,27,28]; and interferometers based on twin core phonics crystal fiber (TC-PCF) [13]. These lasers usually are switched to operate in stable dual-wavelength oscillation by adjusting the polarization controllers (PCs).…”