Tunable and Switchable Multiwavelength Passively Mode-Locked Fiber Laser Based on SESAM and Inline Birefringence Comb Filter

Author

Luo, Zhi-Chao ; Luo, Ai-Ping ; Xu, Wen-Cheng

Author_Institution

Key Lab. of Photonic Inf. Technol., South China Normal Univ., Guangzhou, China

Volume

3

Issue

1

fYear

2011

Firstpage

64

Lastpage

70

Abstract

A tunable and switchable multiwavelength passively mode-locked fiber laser by using a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM) and an inline birefringence fiber filter is proposed and demonstrated. By properly rotating the polarization controllers (PCs), up to 7-wavelength mode-locked pulses in 3-dB bandwidth with 3.65-nm channel spacing are obtained. The wavelength switchable operation is determined by the characteristics of the comb filter used in the experiment. Taking advantage of an intensity-dependent loss mechanism caused by the nonlinear polarization rotation (NPR) effect, the mode competition is efficiently suppressed. In addition, the lasing locations of multiwavelength mode-locked pulses can be flexibly tuned via the wavelength-dependent loss mechanism.

Keywords

birefringence; channel spacing; comb filters; fibre lasers; laser mirrors; laser mode locking; laser tuning; optical saturable absorption; SESAM; channel spacing; inline birefringence comb filter; inline birefringence fiber filter; mode-locked pulses; nonlinear polarization rotation; passively mode-locked fiber laser; polarization controllers; semiconductor saturable absorber mirror; switchable multiwavelength; tunable multiwavelength; Bandwidth; Cavity resonators; Laser mode locking; Laser tuning; Optical fiber polarization; Optical switches; Multiwavelength fiber lasers; comb filter; passively mode-locked; saturable absorber;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Journal, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1943-0655

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JPHOT.2010.2102012

Filename

5674064