Demonstration of linewidth measurement based on phase noise analysis for a single frequency fiber laser in the 2 μm band

Linewidth measurement based on phase noise analysis using a 3 × 3 coupler has been applied in the 1550 nm band. One of the obvious advantages of this method compared with the common delayed self-heterodyne method is the low loss caused by the short delay line used. Taking full advantage of this particular characteristic, the linewidth of the single frequency (SF) fiber laser in the 2 μm band can also be measured. However, a specifically experimental demonstration of this method in the 2 μm band is absent to date. In this paper, a high-performance SF thulium-doped fiber laser (TDFL) was proposed and employed for the demonstration. The TDFL operates at the center wavelength of 1942.03 nm with high stability. By means of the phase noise analysis-based linewidth measurement system with a fiber delay line of only 50 m, the linewidth of the proposed TDFL is successfully measured. When the measuring time is 0.001 s, the linewidth is ~47 kHz. Furthermore, the noise characteristics of the SF laser were simultaneously studied by this method.