The compact Mach-Zehnder interferometer is proposed by splicing a section of photonic crystal fiber (PCF) and two pieces of single mode fiber (SMF) with the air-holes of PCF intentionally collapsed in the vicinity of the splices. The depedence of the fringe spacing on the length of PCF is investigated. Based on the Mach-Zehnder interferometer as wavelength-selective filter, a switchable dual-wavelength fiber ring laser is demonstrated with a homemade erbiumdoped fiber amplifier (EDFA) as the gain medium at room temperature. By adjusting the states of the polarization controller (PC) appropriately, the laser can be switched among the stable single-and dual -wavelength lasing operations by exploiting polarization hole burning (PHB) effect.

Date Published: 28 October 2009
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 7514, Photonics and Optoelectronics Meetings (POEM) 2009: Fiber Optic Communication and Sensors, 75140C (28 October 2009); doi: 10.1117/12.840057

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7514:
Photonics and Optoelectronics Meetings (POEM) 2009: Fiber Optic Communication and Sensors
Dieter Stefan Jäger; Hequan Wu; Shuisheng Jian; Desheng Jiang; Deming Liu; Weiwei Dong; Qizhen Sun; Xiaochun Xiao, Editor(s)