Tunable erbium-doped fiber ring laser precisely locked to the 50-GHz ITU frequency grid

A discretely tunable, single-frequency erbium-doped fiber ring laser demonstrates frequency locking to the 50-GHz ITU frequency grid with an accuracy of /spl plusmn/0.3 GHz and stability of /spl plusmn/0.05 GHz over a 50-nm tuning range. An output power of 7 mW and an extinction ratio of 45 dB make this single-frequency laser useful for a variety of DWDM applications.