Discretely tunable and multiwavelength erbium doped fibre lasers with Fabry-Perot etalon

Modern WDM telecommunication systems require stable and calibrated laser sources. In this paper we present examples of such lasers based on erbium-doped fibres: discretely tunable and multiwavelength ring lasers. For the first case tuning is possible due to tunable Bragg grating overlapping spectrally the third telecommunication window (1550 nm). When a Fabry-Perot etalon is inserted into the cavity, discrete tunable operation with appropriate spacing between operating wavelengths is possible. Different free spectral ranges (FSR) of applied etalons ensured operation at wavelength spacing 0.4 nm, 0.8 nm or 1.6 nm, respectively. When an acoustooptic Bragg frequency shifter was inserted together with the Fabry-Perot etalon, the stable simultaneous multiwavelength operation covering the erbium-doped gain range was achieved.