Tunable erbium-doped fiber ring laser using an intra-cavity filter

Abstract

Linear tuning the frequency of an erbium-doped fiber ring laser using both a Fabry-Perot filter and an electro-optic tunable filter has been experimentally demonstrated. The rate of frequency change is determined by monitoring the fringes produced by laser light transmitted through a fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer. The fiber ring laser has been tuned over a 50 nm spectral range when using the Fabry-Perot filter and a tuning rate of 16480 nm/s has been achieved. The spectral width of the laser is 0.049 nm and the nearest sidelobe to the main peak is more than 30 dB below the central lobe. When the electro-optic tunable filter is used, a spectral range of 11 nm is reached. The spectral width is 2.33 nm and is in close agreement with the filter theoretical results. The sidelobe to main peak difference is around 13 dB.