Dual-Wavelength Operation of a Figure-Eight Fiber Laser¹

O. Pottiez^a, *, J. C. Hernandez-Garcia^a, B. Ibarra-Escamilla^b, and E. A. Kuzin^b

^a Centro de Investigaciones en Óptica (CIO), Loma del Bosque 115, Col. Lomas del Campestre,
León, Gto. 37150, Mexico

^b Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE), Departamento de Óptica,
L.E. Erro 1, Puebla, Pue. 72000, Mexico

*e-mail: pottiez@cio.mx

Received October 5, 2011; in final form, October 11, 2011; published online September 3, 2012

Abstract—We study numerically an erbium-doped figure-eight fiber laser including a double-bandpass optical
filter for dual-wavelength pulse generation. Simulations are performed for several values of the filter bandwidth
and wavelength separation between the transmission windows. The results show that dual-wavelength mode-
locking is obtained in most cases, with a balanced energy distribution between wavelengths. Due to cavity dis-
persion, the pulses at each wavelength are asynchronous for a large wavelength separation, whereas they are
synchronous for closely spaced wavelengths, as in this case cross-phase modulation is able to compensate for
the dispersion-induced walkoff. In the asynchronous case, dual-wavelength operation is favored by the filter
loss, whereas in the synchronous case it is favored by the saturable absorber action of the nonlinear optical loop
mirror. Simulations also show that, thanks to those stabilization mechanisms, dual-wavelength pulsed operation
does not require precise cavity loss equalization between the two oscillating wavelengths.

DOI: 10.1134/S1054660X12100180

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