Switchable and tunable Erbium-doped fiber ring laser incorporating a birefringent and highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber

A birefringent and highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber is employed in an Erbium doped fiber ring laser, which can operate with dual-wavelength lasing or single-wavelength lasing. Both stable dual-wavelength lasing and tunable single-wavelength lasing are achieved by adjusting a polarization controller in the ring cavity. The experimental results show that the output of the proposed fiber ring laser is rather stable at two different operation modes.