Spectral investigation of multimode fiber Bragg grating based external-cavity semiconductor lasers

The output spectra of external-cavity semiconductor lasers (ECSLs) formed by using different antireflection (AR) coated laser diodes (LDs) with multimode fiber Bragg gratings (MMFBGs), are studied systematically. It is found that the side mode suppression ratio (SMSR) of the output spectra of ECSL is dependent on the relative position of the Bragg wavelength and the intracavity modes of the LD, and this effect is more apparent when the reflectivity of AR coating of LD is increased. Numerical simulations are provided to explain the experimental observations. Furthermore, the requirements of wavelength locking of ECSLs with MMFBGs are found to be different from those with single-mode fiber Bragg gratings (SMFBGs). The conditions of wavelength locking of the MMFBG-based ECSLs in terms of gain margin between the material gain peak and the gain corresponding to the selected Bragg wavelength, reflectivity of AR coating of LD and reflectivities of the Bragg wavelengths of MMFBG are comprehensively investigated, and compared with the experimental results.