Broadband supercontinuum light source seeded by random distributed feedback fiber laser

A novel broadband light source based on supercontinuum (SC) generation seeded by random distributed feedback fiber laser (RFL) is proposed and demonstrated for the first time. A half-opened fiber cavity formed by FBG and TrueWave fiber is used to generate random lasing and SC simultaneously. Experimental results indicate that RFL can be used as an effective pump for generation of SC. SC with 20-dB bandwidth of >250 nm was obtained. Such a broadband SC light source seeded by RFL may pave a way to generate high power broadband RFLs for use in optical sensing and measurement.