A broadly tunable fiber ring laser employing a gain-clamped semiconductor optical amplifier

A widely tunable fiber ring laser is demonstrated experimentally using a specially designed gain-clamped semiconductor optical amplifier (GC-SOA). The 3 dB bandwidth of the generated amplified spontaneous emission is increased by 10 nm using the GC-SOA. The lasing wavelength is continuously tunable in a range from 1522 nm to almost 1600 nm using a thin-film Fabry–Pérot tunable filter. A side-mode-suppression ratio of greater than 55 dB is achieved over the entire tuning range. (paper)