Single-frequency linear cavity erbium-doped fiber laser for fiber-optic sensing applications

We report a short-cavity fiber laser configured with a high-concentration erbium-doped fiber with stable single-frequency output. The fiber laser utilized a fiber Bragg grating inscribed into a piece of polarization-maintaining optical fiber as the output coupler to ensure a stable single frequency laser output. The polarization-maintaining optical fiber used in the output coupler is intended to provide the linearly polarized single-frequency laser output. The fiber laser had a maximum hundreds of micron-Watt level power output pumped by a fiber pigtailed laser diode working at 980 nm. Mode hopping phenomenon was eliminated in such a short-cavity fiber laser. Laser frequency stability less than 400 MHz over 10 minutes was obtained.