Quasicontinuous tunable fiber-ring laser applied as local oscillator in an absolute calibrated spectrometer for WDM systems

• Published in: Journal of lightwave technology Vol. 15; no. 4; pp. 628 - 635
• Main Authors: Kruger, U., Kruger, K., von Helmolt, C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.04.1997; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Subjects: Auxiliary transmitters; Exact sciences and technology; Fiber lasers; Frequency; Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications); Lasers; Local oscillators; Optical filters; Optical resonators; Optical transmitters; Optics; Physics; Ring lasers; Tunable circuits and devices; Wavelength division multiplexing; Fiber laser; Optical telecommunication; Tunable lasers; Spectrometers; Performance characteristic; Ring lasers; Wavelength division multiplexing; Fabry Perot resonator
• ISSN: 0733-8724; 1558-2213
• DOI: 10.1109/50.566683

A special tunable fiber-ring laser is introduced. With this laser as local oscillator, a calibrated optical spectrometer was realized, which allows the determination of the wavelength of all transmitters of a wavelet division multiplexing (WDM) system in one sweep. The system is based on a fiber ring laser including a high finesse Fabry-Perot resonator with a high free spectral range and a 1-km-long dispersion shifted fiber. To achieve a high wavelength determination accuracy two auxiliary signals are generated: one with a Krypton filled absorption tube and another with a simple, silica based, periodical filter. With that, the wavelength of every transmitter of a WDM signal can be determined with an absolute frequency accuracy of better than /spl plusmn/0.8 GHz in a range of 1527-1562 nm in one sweep. The relative frequency accuracy is better than /spl plusmn/0.3 GHz.