Stable and spacing-adjustable multiwavelength Raman fiber laser based on mixed-cascaded phosphosilicate fiber Raman linear cavity

A novel multiwavelength Raman fiber laser based on the mixed-cascaded Stokes effects of phosphosilicate fiber is proposed and demonstrated experimentally. By using stimulated Raman scattering of both P2O5 and SiO2 along 1 km phosphosilicate fiber pumped with a 1064 run double-clad fiber laser, the mixed-cascaded Raman linear cavity is formed by a pair of fiber Bragg gratings at 1239 nm, a polarization-maintaining fiber (PMF) Sagnac loop filter, and a conventional optical loop mirror. Up to 15-wavelength stable oscillations around 1320 nm are obtained with a wavelength spacing of 0.44 nm and power nonuniformity of less than 4 dB. By changing the length of the PMF in the Sagnac loop filter from 10 to 5.5 m, the wavelength spacing is adjustable from 0.44 to 0.8 nm. The extinction ratio of the laser is more than 30 dB. Excellent stability is also observed with a peak power fluctuation of less than 0.8 dB in 1 h. (C) 2008 Optical Society of America.