Multiwavelength Raman fiber-ring laser based on tunable cascaded long-period fiber gratings

Multiwavelength Raman fiber lasers using intracavity tunable cascaded long-period fiber gratings (LPFGs) are discussed. The application of the cascaded LPFGs as a multichannel fiber filter for the multiple-wavelength generation is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The characteristics of multiwavelength fiber-ring lasers can be controlled by changing the physical parameters of cascaded LPFGs such as the separation distance between the gratings, grating length, and number of gratings. The multiwavelength Raman fiber-ring laser with nine wavelength-division-multiplexing channels with 100-GHz spacing and 19 channels with 50-GHz spacing has been achieved by varying the physical parameters of cascaded LPFGs.