Hybrid Brillouin/erbium fiber laser

We propose and demonstrate a novel hybrid Brillouin/erbium fiber laser that uses both Brillouin gain in single-mode optical fiber and gain in erbium-doped fiber. The lasing frequency was accurately determined by the Brillouin shift in single-mode optical fiber and was 10.35 GHz from the Brillouin pump. Large powers could be extracted because of incorporation of erbium-doped fiber in the laser resonator. An output power of 10 mW was measured at a wavelength of 1532 nm. (C) 1996 Optical Society of America