Wavelength-tunable optical spectral bistability in a ring laser using a semiconductor optical amplifier

Author

Wang, Bing ; Xu, Lei ; Baby, Varghese ; Glesk, Ivan ; Prucnal, Paul

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Princeton Univ., NJ, USA

Volume

2

fYear

2001

fDate

2001

Firstpage

748

Abstract

Optical bistability at different wavelengths in a semiconductor fiber ring laser has been demonstrated. Changing the SOA bias current shows two stable optical outputs for any given current within the operating range. The laser can also be switched from one bistable state to another using optical control methods. Different wavelengths are selected by tuning the polarizer or the polarization controller in the laser cavity. These features will make the laser very promising for all-optical wavelength routing networking applications

Keywords

fibre lasers; laser cavity resonators; laser tuning; optical bistability; ring lasers; semiconductor optical amplifiers; Lyot filter; SOA bias current; all-optical wavelength routing; fiber ring laser; laser cavity; optical control; optical spectral bistability; polarization controller tuning; polarization maintaining fiber; rotating linear polarizer; wavelength selection; wavelength-tunable bistability; Fiber lasers; Laser tuning; Optical bistability; Optical control; Optical fiber polarization; Optical tuning; Ring lasers; Semiconductor lasers; Semiconductor optical amplifiers; Wavelength routing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Lasers and Electro-Optics Society, 2001. LEOS 2001. The 14th Annual Meeting of the IEEE

Conference_Location

San Diego, CA

ISSN

1092-8081

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7105-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/LEOS.2001.969031

Filename

969031