A stable smoothly wavelength-tunable picosecond pulse generator

Author

Duan, Lingze ; Richardson, Christopher J.K. ; Hu, Zhaoyang ; Dagenais, Mario ; Goldhar, Julius

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Maryland Univ., College Park, MD, USA

Volume

14

Issue

6

fYear

2002

fDate

6/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

840

Lastpage

842

Abstract

Smooth wavelength tuning over 10 nm has been realized in a dispersion-tuned harmonically mode-locked fiber ring laser. Supermode noise is suppressed by 13 dB by adding a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) into the cavity and the suppression improves as the SOA gain increases. 5.3-ps pulses are obtained at a repetition rate of 10 GHz. A simple numerical model demonstrates the effects of the intracavity dispersion and the SOA on the pulse characteristics.

Keywords

fibre lasers; laser mode locking; laser noise; laser tuning; optical fibre dispersion; optical pulse generation; ring lasers; semiconductor optical amplifiers; 5.3 ps; SOA gain; cavity; dispersion-tuned harmonically mode-locked fiber ring laser; intracavity dispersion; pulse characteristics; repetition rate; semiconductor optical amplifier; simple numerical model; smooth wavelength tuning; stable smoothly wavelength-tunable picosecond pulse generator; supermode noise suppression; Fiber lasers; Laser mode locking; Laser noise; Laser tuning; Optical pulses; Optical tuning; Pulse amplifiers; Pulse generation; Ring lasers; Semiconductor optical amplifiers;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2002.1003111

Filename

1003111