| |
| An electro-optic intensity modulator (EOIM) is adopted to generate Brillouin-frequency-shifted light in a Brillouin distributed fiber sensor, but the power of the modulated light drifts severely without control on the EOIM and the output spectrum usually contains high-order sidebands. These above both degrade the sensor's performance. In our paper, a Brillouin/erbium fiber laser (BEFL) is used to overcome demerits caused by the modulation of the EOIM, based on its optical carrier-suppression characteristics. By doing this, the EOIM operates at the linear region of its transfer curve, which releases the requirements for the operation point control on it. The maximum 32dB optical carrier-suppression ratio is obtained at 112mW of the 980nm pump power inside the BEFL, with 20dBm modulation power of the EOIM. The high carrier-suppression ratio presents flat and stable response to the modulation frequency of the EOIM. Furthermore, the suppression ratio can be changed by tuning the 980nm pump power inside the BEFL. These denote significant applications of the BEFLs in both distributed Brillouin fiber sensors and microwave photonics. |
|
| Keywords:Brillouin/erbium fiber laser; Optical carrier-suppression; Electro-optic intensity modulator; Distributed Brillouin optical fiber sensor; Microwave photonics |
|
