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In this paper, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a tunable erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) with Sagnac interference loop with 45° angle shift spliced polarization maintaining fibers (PMFs). In the Sagnac loop, two PMFs with similar lengths. The Sagnac loop outputs a relatively complex interference spectrum since two beams transmitted in clockwise and counterclockwise encounter at the 3 dB coupler, interfere, and form two interference combs when the light transmitted in the Sagnac loop. The laser will excite and be stable when two interference lines in these two interference combs overlap together. Then by adjusting the polarization controller, the wide wavelength tuning is realized. Experimental results show that stable single wavelength laser can be realized in the wavelength range of 1585 nm–1604 nm under the pump power 157.1 mW. The side-mode suppression ratio is not less than 53.9 dB. The peak power fluctuation is less than 0.29 dB within 30 min monitor time and the side-mode suppression ratio is great than 57.49 dB when the pump power is to 222.7 mW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past several decades, the data-carrying capacity of a single optical fiber have been increased significantly by fully exploring and optimizing physical dimensions of the light. Generally there are five major candidates of dimensions, including time, wavelength, polarization, space and quadrature (phase and amplitude). Multi-dimension, utilizing more than two dimensions of the light simultaneously, is one of the essential characteristics of next generation optical communication systems. We review recent advances in transmission of multi-dimensional signals, and highlight innovative ways of exploring the polarization dimension to further increase the capacity or spectral efficiency of a single optical fiber, a so-called pseudo-polarization-division-multiplexing (PPDM) technique. Related demonstrations include non-orthogonal PDM, PPDM of three and four states (PPDM-3 and PPDM-4). Brief discussions on trends of multi-dimensional signal transmission technologies are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]