High power tunable multiwavelength random fiber laser at 1.3 μm waveband

Multiwavelength fiber lasers, especially those operating at optical communication wavebands such as 1.3 μm and 1.5 μm wavebands, have huge demands in wavelength division multiplexing communications. In the past decade, multiwavelength fiber lasers operating at 1.5 μm waveband have been widely reported. Nevertheless, 1.3 μm waveband multiwavelength fiber laser is rarely studied due to the lack of proper gain mechanism. Random fiber laser (RFL), owing to its good temporal stability and flexible wavelength tunability, is a great candidate for multiwavelength generation. Here, we reported high power multiwavelength generation at 1.3 μm waveband in RFL for the first time. At first, we employed a section of 10 km G655C fiber to provide Raman gains, as a result of which, 1.07 W multiwavelength generation at 1.3 μm waveband with an optical to signal noise ratio of ∼33 dB is demonstrated. By tuning the pump wavelength from 1055 nm to 1070 nm, tunable multiwavelength output covering the range of 1300-1330 nm can be achieved. Furtherly, we realized 4.67 W multiwavelength generation at 1.3 μm waveband by shortening the fiber length to 4 km. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest output power ever reported for multiwavelength fiber lasers.