Four-wave mixing assisted self-stable 4x10 GHz actively mode-locked Erbium fiber ring laser

We proposed and developed a self-stable multiwavelength (4 cbannels) 10-GHz actively mode-locked Erbium-doped fiber ring laser with 0.8 nm wavelength spacing. A 1-km highly nonlinear fiber is incorporated in the laser cavity to eliminate the strong gain competitions in the homogeneously broadened EDF by multiple parametric four-wave mixing processes. The fiber nonlinearity is also helpful to provide phase locking and stabilize the output pulse. Stable laser pulses at 1556.55, 1557.36, 1558.17, and 1558.98 nm are successfully obtained simultaneously with supermode noise suppression ratio greater than 50 dB. The corresponding time-bandwidth products of four channels are 0.39 similar to 0.41. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.