Wide and fast wavelength-swept fiber laser based on dispersion tuning for dynamic sensing

Abstract

We have developed a unique wide and fast wavelength-swept fiber laser for dynamic and accurate fiber sensing. The wavelength tuning is based on the dispersion tuning technique, which simply modulates the loss/gain in the dispersive laser cavity. By using wideband semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs), the sweep range could be as wide as∼180nm. Since the cavity contains no mechanical components, such as tunable filters, we could achieve very high sweep rate, as high as∼200kHz. We have realized the swept lasers at three wavelength bands, 1550nm, 1300nm, and 800nm, using SOAs along with erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs), and in two laser configurations, ring and linear ones. We also succeeded in applying the swept laser for a dynamic fiber-Bragg grating (FBG) sensor system. In this paper, we review our researches on the wide and fast wavelength-swept fiber lasers. © 2009. Shinji Yamashita et al.