Self-Mixing Speckle in an Erbium-Doped Fiber Ring Laser and Its Application to Velocity Sensing

In this letter, a new study of self-mixing speckle in an erbium-doped fiber ring (EDFR) laser and its application to velocity sensing is presented. We have experimentally built a fiber laser based on a ring cavity by using a packaged erbium-doped fiber amplifier and applied it to the self-mixing speckle experiments. We have also given theoretical analysis of the model of self-mixing speckle in the EDFR laser and the variation of the output power of the laser is deduced. The speckle signal has been statistically analyzed and found submitting to Gaussian distribution. For its utility to velocity sensing, the speckle signals at different velocities are processed through calculating the number of box by the fractal theory. A linear relationship between the number of box and velocity is obtained. The experimental result shows that the self-mixing speckle signal in EDFR laser can be used in velocity sensing.