All-fiber wavelength-swept laser near 2 μm

We report, for the first time to our knowledge, an all-fiber wavelength-swept Tm-doped laser based on a fiber Fabry-Perot tunable filter in the 2 mu m spectral region. The laser wavelength can be continuously tuned over 200 nm from 1840 to 2040 nm in a short period of time. The demonstrated tuning speed was 12.5 mu m/s with a tuning efficiency of 17.5 nm/V. The spectral linewidth of the laser was measured to be approximately 300 MHz or 0.01 cm(-1). This kind of laser can find potential applications in both high-resolution laser spectroscopy and tunable mid-IR generation via nonlinear frequency conversion. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America