Multi-wavelength Brillouin erbium-doped fiber laser with 40 GHz frequency shift interval assisted by Sagnac loop filter

A switchable and tunable multi-wavelength Brillouin erbium-doped fiber laser (MWBEFL) is designed and experimentally demonstrated. A Sagnac loop filter is employed as the switcher to obtain the double Brillouin frequency shift (BFS) of 0.172 nm (∼20 GHz) and the quadruple BFS of 0.35 nm (∼40 GHz). The working principles of the proposed laser are theoretically analyzed. The experimental results show that up to 8 Stokes lines with a wavelength interval of 0.172 nm can be obtained. When the Sagnac loop filter is used, two different output spectra with wavelength interval of 0.35 nm are obtained by adjusting the polarization controller (PC) and the optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) is greater than 33 dB. By adjusting the Brillouin pump (BP) wavelength to investigate the tunability of the fiber laser, the output of 2–5 laser channels can be realized corresponding to 20 nm wavelength range. This approach is simple and can be employed for the microwave generation of other frequency ranges subject to the filtering shift of the Sagnac loop.