Effect of coupling ratio on performance of self-excited Brillouin/erbium fiber laser

Abstract

The operation of the self-excited Brillouin/erbium fiber laser (BEFL) is experimentally demonstrated. It uses a forward pumped erbium-doped fiber (EDF) as a gain medium to generate a Brillouin-pump and amplify the Stokes frequency signals generated in a single-mode fiber (SMF). The operating wavelength varies with changes of coupling ratio of the looping arm. The optimum BEFL operation is obtained with a center wavelength at 1567.5nm by looping back 20% of BEFL output into the other end of the SMF. A stable and strong BEFL comb of up to 16 lines with approximately 11 GHz line spacing are produced at the 980-nm pump power of 118mW. The self-excited BEFL has the potential to be used in the future dense wavelength division multiplexing communication system.