Switchable multiwavelength erbium doped fiber laser based on a nonlinear optical loop mirror incorporating multiple fiber Bragg gratings

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a switchable multiwavelength erbium doped fiber laser based on a highly nonlinear dispersion shifted fiber and multiple fiber Bragg gratings. A nonlinear optical loop mirror based on a highly nonlinear dispersion shifted fiber is implemented in the ring laser cavity to stabilize the multiwavelength output at room temperature. Multiple fiber Bragg gratings with the wavelength spacing of 0.8 nm are connected with an arrayed waveguide grating to establish a multichannel filter. The high quality of the multiwavelength output with a high extinction ratio of similar to 60 dB and high output flatness of similar to 0.5 dB is realized. The nonlinear polarization rotation based on the nonlinear optical loop mirror can provide the switching performance of the proposed multiwavelength fiber laser. The lasing wavelength can be switched individually by controlling the polarization controller and the cavity loss. (c) 2008 Optical Society of America.