Frequency Comb Generation Based on Brillouin Random Lasing Oscillation and Four-Wave Mixing Assisted with Nonlinear Optical Loop Mirror

Abstract

A frequency comb generator (FCG) based on dual-cavity Brillouin random fiber lasing oscillation in the 1.5 μm telecon spectral window is established and experimentally demonstrated. In the half-open main cavity of the dual cavity, the stimulated Brillouin scattering in highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF) and Rayleigh scattering in single-mode fiber are employed to provide sufficient Brillouin gain and the randomly distributed feedback, respectively, for random mode resonance. The sub-cavity includes an Er-doped fiber amplifier to couple back and boost lower-order Stokes and anti-Stokes light for the cascade of stimulated Brillouin scattering to generate multiple higher-order Stokes and anti-Stokes light. Meanwhile, efficient four-wave mixing is stimulated in the HNLF-based main cavity, further enhancing the number and intensity of the resonant Stokes and anti-Stokes light. By taking advantages of the unique transmission characteristics of nonlinear optical loop mirrors, the power deviation between Stokes and anti-Stokes lines is further optimized with 17 orders of stable Stokes lines and 15 orders of stable anti-Stokes lines achieved within the 10 dB power deviation, with maximum optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) of ~22 dB and ~17 dB and minimum OSNR of ~10 dB and ~7.5 dB for Stokes and anti-Stokes lines, respectively. In addition, the dynamic characteristics of the proposed FCG have been experimentally investigated. Such an FCG with fixed frequency spacing will find promising applications in fields of optical communication, microwave, optical sensing, etc.