Tunable ring laser using a tapered single mode fiber tip

A tunable ring laser using a tapered single mode fiber tip as a bandpass filter has been proposed and demonstrated for the first time to our knowledge. This is a simple and cost-effective tunable source. It is found that the tuning range and bandwidth of the laser are related to the relaxation time of the optical amplifier, the current of the amplifier, and the steepness of the tip shape. The calculations and experimental results show that the laser has a tuning range of 9 nm in the L-band and the spectral linewidth can be varied from 0.06 nm to 0.17 nm.