Stable power multi-wavelength fibre laser based on four-wave mixing in a short length of highly non-linear fibre

• Main Authors: Awang, Noor Azura, Zulkifli, Mohd Zamani, Latif, Amirah Abdul, Harun, Sulaiman Wadi, Ahmad, Harith
• Format: Article
• Published: IOP Publishing 2011
• Subjects: QC Physics; TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
• Online Access: http://eprints.um.edu.my/19857/; https://doi.org/10.1088/2040-8978/13/7/075401
• Institution: Universiti Malaya

A multi-wavelength fibre laser utilizing the four-wave mixing (FWM) effect in a 100m long highly non-linear fibre (HNLF) is proposed and demonstrated. The multi-wavelength fibre laser is configured in a ring cavity and only needs a low power erbium doped fibre amplifier (EDFA) as the gain medium to generate 11 lines in the range of 1582-1600nm with a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 43dB. The proposed system is very stable, with only minor fluctuations of 0.1dB in the output power of the generated multi-wavelengths observed for a test period of more than an hour. The multi-wavelength fibre laser has many potential applications in optical communications and optical sensing systems.