Tuning of an Er-Yb:glass mini-laser using external feedback from fiber Bragg grating

Summary form only given. We show the possibility to lock the emission of an Er:Yb glass laser to a FBG and continuously tune it over 20 nm with narrow linewidth. It was possible to choose the wavelength at will and single mode operation (internal cavity) was always obtained. The maximum compression of the grating was limited by the alignment of the ferrules. It was possible to detect when the fiber was bent and alignment was lost from a large increase in optical loss. This was used as a warning signal so that fiber failure could be avoided. The system proved reliable and can be scaled to higher power (>1 W) tunable outputs.