Stable power multi-wavelength fibre laser based on four-wave mixing in a short length of highly non-linear fibre

A multi-wavelength fibre laser utilizing the four-wave mixing (FWM) effect in a 100 m long highly non-linear fibre (HNLF) is proposed and demonstrated. The multi-wavelength fibre laser is configured in a ring cavity and only needs a low power erbium doped fibre amplifier (EDFA) as the gain medium to generate 11 lines in the range of 1582–1600 nm with a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 43 dB. The proposed system is very stable, with only minor fluctuations of 0.1 dB in the output power of the generated multi-wavelengths observed for a test period of more than an hour. The multi-wavelength fibre laser has many potential applications in optical communications and optical sensing systems