Narrow linewidth fiber laser using compound-ring cavity filter and self-injection locked mechanism.

• A highly stable narrow linewidth erbium-doped fiber laser was proposed. • The self-injection locked mechanism was utilized in the ring-cavity fiber laser. • The cascaded Type Ⅱ fiber rings cavity filter was used to keep single-longitudinal-mode output. • The maximum wavelength drift was 0.0041 nm and the maximum peak power fluctuation was kept at a low level of 0.16 dB. • The minimum linewidth at a 0.002 s was 1.82 kHz. Narrow linewidth erbium-doped fiber lasers (EDFLs) hold in significant potential optical fiber sensing, wavelength multiplexing transmission, and optical fiber communication. However, many EDFLs produced outputs with linewidth in several kHz level. Therefore, a high optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR), narrow linewidth single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) EDFL was proposed and investigated in this work. The EDFL utilized a combination of compound-ring cavity filter and a self-injection locked mechanism to generate a stable SLM output with an OSNR greater than 72 dB. The maximum wavelength drift and maximum peak power fluctuation over 60 min were maintained at low values of 0.0041 nm and 0.16 dB. Moreover, a narrow linewidth of 1.82 kHz at a measuring time of 0.002 s was realized. Furthermore, the research also investigated output power variations with different pump powers, relaxation oscillation, and the dependence of output central wavelength on the axial strain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]