Multiwavelength Fiber Optical Parametric Oscillator

We demonstrate, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, a multiwavelength fiber ring laser using a continuous-wave dual-pump fiber optical parametric amplifier (FOPA) as gain medium. In the ring cavity, two high-power pumps are injected into a spool of 1-km highly nonlinear dispersion-shifted fiber to generate the parametric gain, and a superimposed chirped fiber Bragg grating is used as the comb-like filter. Benefiting from the high and flat gain of the dual-pump FOPA, seven lasing lines around 1.55 mu m with wavelength spacing of 1 nm have been obtained. Each lasing line has a linewidth of as narrow as 20 pm and an extinction ratio of > 30 dB. The proposed mechanism using a dual-pump FOPA as gain medium is a promising alternative for generating multiwavelength laser.