High performance single frequency fiber grating-based erbium/ytterbium-codoped fiber lasers

The device characteristics of Er/sup 3+/,Yb/sup 3+/ single frequency fiber lasers are reported. A 5-cm long 1550-nm distributed feedback fiber laser with 4 mW output power is shown to have excellent specifications in terms of optical linewidth, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), relative intensity noise, side-mode suppression and polarization purity. For higher power applications, a 1.5 cm single frequency Er/sup 3+/,Yb/sup 3+/ grating-based fiber laser with 60 mW output power and a net efficiency of 12% is demonstrated.