A novel-configuration multi-wavelength Brillouin erbium fiber laser and its application in switchable high-frequency microwave generation

摘要

A novel configuration of compound-cavity multi-wavelength Brillouin erbium fiber laser is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. With an incident optical carrier power of 8 dBm, at least 14 lasing lines are obtained with a wavelength spacing of ～0.08 nm. Stability and power uniformity of the multi-wave-length lasing are ensured by the flat hybrid gain of Brillouin and erbium, the compound-cavity structure, and the four-wave mixing suppression using a long (10 km) single-mode fiber. A stable and frequency-switchable microwave can be achieved by incorporating a fiber Bragg grating filter to select the desired nth-order Stokes wave and beating it with the optical carrier at a photodetector. In our experiment, the 1st-4th-order Stokes waves are filtered respectively and hence a high-quality microwave with a switchable frequency from ～10 to ～40 GHz and a tuning step of ～10 GHz is achieved. The signal-to-noise ratio is measured to be >25 dB.