A highly stable low-RIN hybrid Brillouin/erbium amplified laser source

Author

Yi, Lilin ; Zhan, Li ; Hu, Weisheng ; Hu, Peigang ; Su, Yikai ; Leng, Lufeng ; Xia, Yuxing

Author_Institution

State Key Lab. of Adv. Opt. Commun. Syst. & Networks, Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ., China

Volume

18

Issue

9

fYear

2006

fDate

5/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1028

Lastpage

1030

Abstract

We demonstrate a low-noise all-fiber hybrid Brillouin/erbium amplified source consisting of a Brillouin/erbium fiber laser with a subsequent Brillouin amplifier to boost the power and reduce the noise. The same single-mode fibers used in the fiber laser and the amplifier lead to the same amount of Stokes frequency shifts in spite of the environmental variation, ensuring stable Brillouin amplification. The hybridly amplified source features temperature insensitivity, low noise, potentially high power, and low cost. The relative intensity noise of the hybridly amplified source is ∼10 dB lower than that of the erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA)-based source at radio frequencies >200 MHz due to the filtering characteristics of the Brillouin amplification. Compared with an EDFA amplified fiber system, the spurious-free dynamic range of an analog transmission system employing such a laser source is improved by 7.7 dB owning to the lower RIN.

Keywords

Brillouin spectra; erbium; laser noise; laser stability; optical communication equipment; optical fibre amplifiers; optical fibre communication; Brillouin/erbium amplified laser source; Stokes frequency shifts; analog transmission system; brillouin amplifier; erbium-doped fiber amplifier; fiber amplifier; fiber laser; filtering characteristics; high-power amplified source; hybrid amplified laser source; low cost amplified source; low-RIN laser source; low-noise amplified source; relative intensity noise; single-mode fibers; spurious-free dynamic range; stable Brillouin amplification; stable laser source; temperature insensitivity; Erbium; Erbium-doped fiber amplifier; Erbium-doped fiber lasers; Frequency; Laser noise; Laser stability; Low-noise amplifiers; Noise reduction; Power lasers; Working environment noise; Amplifier; beat noise; dynamic range; erbium; relative intensity noise (RIN); stimulated Brillouin scattering;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2006.873484

Filename

1621266