Erbium doped random fiber laser and fiber mixing effect

We demonstrate an active random fiber laser by directly pumping a 100 m erbium-doped fiber at 980 nm wavelength, with a fiber loop mirror forming a half-open cavity. Random lasing with competing spectral modes in the range from 1535 nm to 1560 nm is achieved, with the maximum lasing slope efficiency around 10%. We also study the effect of combining a dispersion compensated fiber with the erbium-doped fiber. The kilometers long dispersion compensated fiber reduces the random lasing threshold and increases the signal to noise ratio, while enhancing the tunability of the random laser's spectrum range by the fiber loop mirror feedback.