A comparative study of the performance of narrow linewidth erbium-doped fiber laser by incorporating different selective elements

Abstract

Tunable laser performance sources with requirements of higher optical power and narrower linewidth become widely demands due to massive usage of network capacity driven by new applications and services associated with web-scale networking. High optical power and narrow linewidth are seeking to transmit signals over a long distance and to increase data transmission rate. Employing wavelength selective element within the cavity usually used to reduce the linewidth, giving the outcome of significantly narrow linewidth. Hence, in this paper, the comparative study of erbium-doped fiber ring laser (EDFL) was experimentally performed by using different selective elements. The output optical power, tunability and the 3dB linewidth EDFL incorporating different wavelength selective elements such as the tunable-bandpass filter (TBF), arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) and ultra-narrow bandwidth tunable filter (UNB-tunable filter) was analyzed. The UNB-tunable filter produced the widest tuning capability of 37.7 nm, which covered the C-band region. The narrowest 3 dB linewidth was obtained by using an UNB-tunable filter, giving the linewidth value of 14 pm. The utilization of UNB-optical filter in EDFL configuration was proven to offers greater tunability, lower linewidth and better optical performance.