Tunable erbium-doped fiber laser based on optical fiber Sagnac interference loop with angle shift spliced polarization maintaining fibers

• Published in: Optical fiber technology 2018-05, Vol.42, p.1-5
• Main Authors: Ding, Zhenming, Wang, Zhaokun, Zhao, Chunliu, Wang, Dongning
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Erbium-doped fiber; Polarization maintaining fiber; Sagnac loop; Tunable
• ISSN: 1068-5200; 1095-9912
• DOI: 10.1016/j.yofte.2018.02.006

•An erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) is proposed with a special Sagnac loop.•The proposed laser is stable and the wavelength can be tuned in a wide range.•The proposed tunable EDFL has a simple setup, compared with many other techniques. In this paper, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a tunable erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) with Sagnac interference loop with 45° angle shift spliced polarization maintaining fibers (PMFs). In the Sagnac loop, two PMFs with similar lengths. The Sagnac loop outputs a relatively complex interference spectrum since two beams transmitted in clockwise and counterclockwise encounter at the 3 dB coupler, interfere, and form two interference combs when the light transmitted in the Sagnac loop. The laser will excite and be stable when two interference lines in these two interference combs overlap together. Then by adjusting the polarization controller, the wide wavelength tuning is realized. Experimental results show that stable single wavelength laser can be realized in the wavelength range of 1585 nm–1604 nm under the pump power 157.1 mW. The side-mode suppression ratio is not less than 53.9 dB. The peak power fluctuation is less than 0.29 dB within 30 min monitor time and the side-mode suppression ratio is great than 57.49 dB when the pump power is to 222.7 mW.