Discretely tunable erbium-doped fiber ring laser selecting ITU-T grids of 273 channels × 50-GHz spacing inC- andL-band regions.

We report the fabrication of a discretely tunable erbium-doped fiber ring laser with a novel scheme that can select ITU-T grids of 50-GHz spacing in bothCandLbands. Wavelength selections of 273 channels are demonstrated with a signal to source spontaneous emission ratio of 60 dB/nm and excellent power flatness over 111-nm bandwidth. This was realized by incorporating both a solid Fabry-Pérot interferometer and a fiber Fabry-Pérot tunable filter into the ring laser. To our knowledge, our experimental result has the widest tuning range ever reported for a discretely tunable fiber laser with 50-GHz channel spacing that matches the ITU-T grids and is the first equipment that can operate in bothCandLbands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]