L-Band Multiwavelength BEFL With Amplified Fiber Loop Mirror

An efficient L-band multiple-wavelength Brillouin-erbium fiber laser is presented. We configured a linear cavity resonator where the cavity ends are made up of high-reflectivity optical mirror on one side and an amplified fiber loop mirror on the other. This laser architecture provides amplification intensity-dependent transmission and allows the preamplification of the Brillouin pump (BP) signal before being injected into the Brillouin gain medium, i.e., the single-mode fiber (SMF). The technique ensures rapid reduction of erbium gain depletion, Brillouin gain saturation, and Brillouin threshold of the SMF thereby leading to the generation of higher number Brillouin Stokes lines. By utilizing only 8.5 dBm of the BP signal power, the proposed laser generates 54 Brillouin Stokes lines at BP signal wavelength of 1601.7 nm and 33 mW of the 1480-nm laser pump power. The generated channels are rigidly separated by 0.089 nm thereby becoming an attractive candidate to support the dense wavelength division multiplexing optical communication systems.