OSNR enhancement of Rayleigh-assisted Brillouin-Raman fiber laser via double pass configuration

We propose and demonstrate a 10 GHz spacing multi-wavelength Brillouin-Raman fiber laser (MBRFL) with wide bandwidth and an outstanding optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR). This is achieved by utilizing loop mirror at one end of the laser cavity through a symmetrical bi-directional Raman pumping scheme. The setup is arranged in a double pass configuration by employing different lengths of dispersion compensating fibers (DCF). The attainment of MBRFL with outstanding performance necessitates the optimization of Raman pump power, Brillouin pump wavelength, and DCF length. By employing an 11 km DCF, when setting the Brillouin pump wavelength at 1531.4 nm, 504 Stoke lines are produced with a channel spacing of 0.08 nm. All the counted laser lines have less than a 1-dB peak amplitude variation and are spread across a 40.4 nm bandwidth that covers from 1531.4 to 1571.8 nm wavelength. In this case, the Raman pump power is fixed at 900 mW which results in average OSNR and Stokes peak amplitude level of 28 dB and -7 dBm respectively. To date, this is the simplest cavity design with the widest bandwidth and flattest spectrum together with outstanding OSNR attained in 10 GHz spacing multi-wavelength fiber lasers that incorporate a single low-power Raman pump unit.