A Tunable and Switchable Multi-Wavelength Erbium-Doped Fiber Ring Laser Enabled by Adjusting the Spectral Fringe Visibility of a Mach-Zehnder Fiber Interferometer

• Published in: Applied sciences Vol. 14; no. 21; p. 9846
• Main Authors: Nuñez Gomez, Romeo Emmanuel, Anzueto Sánchez, Gilberto, Martínez Ríos, Alejando, Fong González, Ariel, Olarte Paredes, Alfredo, Salgado Delgado, Areli Marlen, Castrellón Uribe, Jesús, Salgado Delgado, René
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.11.2024
• Subjects: Analysis; erbium-doped fiber laser; Fiber optics; Lasers; Mach-Zehnder fiber interferometer; multi-wavelength; Optical instruments; switchable laser; tapered fibers; Mexico
• ISSN: 2076-3417; 2076-3417
• DOI: 10.3390/app14219846

This paper presents a tunable, switchable multi-wavelength emission from an erbium-doped fiber ring laser, enabled by adjusting the spectral fringe visibility of a fiber interferometer filter. The filter is formed with specially designed concatenated tapered fibers to configure a Mach-Zehnder fiber interferometer (MZFI). The laser emission is highly flexible and reconfigurable, allowing for tuning between single- and dual-wavelength operation. The laser can switch sequentially from one up to six wavelengths by fixing the curvature and adjusting the polarization state. The lasing emission is generated over a stable wavelength range between 1559.59 nm and 1563.54 nm, exhibiting an optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) exceeding ~35 dB. The performance of amplitude and wavelength fluctuations were evaluated, indicating an appropriate stability of ~3 dB and a shift less than 0.1 nm within a 45 min period at room temperature. A detailed comparison with the literature is given.