Multiwavelength Er-doped fiber laser using an all-fiber Lyot filter

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrated a multiwavelength Er-doped fiber ring laser system by employing an all-fiber Lyot filter (AFLF) and a highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF). The AFLF was employed as a polarizing filter to generate a nonlinear polarization rotation effect and the highly dense and narrow bandwidth comb-like channels. A 1-km-long HNLF was used to enhance the nonlinearity of the laser cavity and suppress the mode competition for multiwavelength operation. In the experiment, 97 laser output channels within a 3 dB bandwidth simultaneously were excited under 224 mW pump power. The power fluctuation of lasing channels was less than 0.182 dB, and the wavelength shift was less than 0.04 nm in 100 min, after treating the AFLF in a thermostatic ice bath. Meanwhile, the output laser was highly polarized with a degree of polarization up to 99.9%.