Generation of nanosecond optical pulses with controlled repetition rate using incavity intensity modulated brillouin erbium fiber laser

Abstract

A multimode Brillouin Erbium Fiber Laser BEFL, at 1550nm band, with in-cavity intensity modulation is demonstrated. The output of the laser is in the form of nanosecond pulses. The longitudinal mode separation is increased, which results in both reducing the number of oscillation modes and, at the same time, changing the output pulses repetition rate to be multiples of the round trip cavity frequency. It is also demonstrated that the number of modes is greatly reduced by the combination of active mode locking and the group velocity dispersion arising from the change in the refractive index at each mode due to the change in its gain within the Brillouin gain bandwidth. A case of a quasi single mode is reached where the output is nearly CW with very low sinusoidal modulation index.