Single-Longitude-Mode Fiber Laser Implementation by Using Only Two Subring Cavities in Serial/Parallel Connection

ABSTRACT

By incorporating double-ring cavities and a piece of un-pumped Er³⁺-doped fiber (EDF) as a saturable absorber, we report a single-longitude-mode EDF fiber laser at C-band. The single-longitude-mode is obtained, the first time, by inserting only two subring cavities in either serial connection or parallel connection. The fiber laser has an optical signal-to-noise-ratio of 34.5 dB and a maximum power fluctuation of less than 1.3% for 1-hr operation. It was then modulated up to 10 Gbit/s by using an electro-optic modulator for eye diagrams, compared to back-to-back transmission. Such a compact and low-cost fiber laser is potential for high-speed optical communication.

KEYWORDS:

• Linear cavity
• single-frequency
• fiber Bragg grating
• side mode suppression ratio
• slope efficiency
• eye diagram

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Ms. Jane Liao for kindly help.

Additional information

Funding

The work is supported in part by MOST, Taiwan under grant numbers MOST 108-2622-8-011-003-TE1,MOST-107-2221-E-027-058 and MOST 107-2218-E-011-020.

Notes on contributors

Hsin-Che Lee

Hsin-Che Lee received her Bachelor's in electronic engineering from Oriental Institute of Technology and Master's degrees in Optomechatronics Engineering from the China University of Science and Technology, Taiwan, in 2011 and 2013, respectively. Her research interests include fiber laser and fiber sensing technology. She is now a doctoral candidate of National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan.

Yin-Wen Lee

Yin-Wen Lee received the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from National Tsinghua University in 2000, and the Ph.D. degree in Applied Physics from Stanford University in 2008. From 2008 to 2010, she was a Post-Doc research scientist in OFS Labs., where she was engaged in developing state-of-the-art kW-class fiber amplifiers and Raman fiber lasers. After a Post-Doc position at National Taiwan University, where she worked on the development of pulsed Yb3+-doped fiber laser sources for efficient EUV generation, she joined Electro-Optical Engineering at National Taipei University of Technology as an assistant professor in 2012, and became an associate professor in 2017.

Jiun-Shin Chang

Jiun-Shin Chang received the M.S. degree from the Electro-Optical Engineering at National Taipei University of Technology in 2015.

Shien-Kuei Liaw

Shien-Kuei Liaw received double doctorate from National Chiao-Tung University in electro-optical engineering and National Taiwan University in Mechanical Engineering. He owned 40 patents; authored and coauthored 250 journal articles and international conference papers. He was an academic visitor of Bellcore (now Telcordia Technologies), the Oxford University and the Cambridge University, respectively. Currently, Dr. Liaw is a distinguished Professor and Vice Dean of National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST). He also serves as the Secretary-General of Taiwan Photonic Society. Dr. Liaw’s research interests include fiber optical device, fiber sensing and optical communication.