Single polarization, dual wavelength fiber laser based on a 3-stage all fiber lyot filter

We have demonstrated a switchable dual wavelength fiber ring laser with a high degree of polarization output by using an intracavity 3-stage all fiber Lyot filter. The filter is formed by concatenating four 45° tilted fiber gratings separated by polarization maintaining fibers with a length ratio of 1:2:4 (20, 40, and 80 cm), giving a compact integrated configuration with reduced bandwidth. Switchable dual wavelength or single wavelength output at 1533.5 and 1563.3 nm has been achieved. The output lasing is considerably stable owing to the in-phase mode-selecting function of the multistage Lyot filter, and has a very high degree of polarization higher than 99.9%. © 1989-2012 IEEE.