A simple multiwavelength Tm-doped fiber laser at the 2 μm band based on multimode interference (MMI) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. In this scheme, a 4 m Tm-doped single-mode fiber is pumped by a 1568 nm laser, and a single-mode–multimode–single-mode (SMS) fiber structure is used as an MMI filter in which the multimode fiber is used to tune the laser. Laser operation of up to three wavelengths is obtained based on the MMI filter. The wavelengths can be tuned by adjusting the polarization controller and rotating the multimode fiber in the SMS structure, and the tuning region is about 24 nm, i.e., 1892–1916 nm. The side-mode suppression ratio of the laser is about 54 dB. The 3 dB linewidth is less than 0.04 nm. Peak fluctuation at each wavelength is analyzed, and the results show that the power fluctuation is less than 3 dB around the average power.

We propose and demonstrate the operation of Q-switched mode-locked square-wave pulses in a thulium-holmium co-doped fiber laser. By using a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror, continuous square-wave dissipative soliton resonance pulse is obtained with 4.4 MHz repetition rate. With the increasing pump power, square-wave pulse duration can be broadened from 1.7 ns to 3.2 ns. On such basis Q-switched mode-locked operation is achieved by properly setting the pump power and the polarization controllers. The internal mode-locked pulses in Q-switched envelope still keep square-wave type. The Q-switched repetition rate can be varied from 41.6 kHz to 74 kHz by increasing pump power. The corresponding average single-pulse energy increases from 2.67 nJ to 5.2 nJ. The average peak power is also improved from 0.6 W to 1.1 W when continuous square-wave operation is changed into Q-switched mode-locked operation. It indicates that Q-switched mode-locked operation is an effective method to increase the square-wave pulse energy and peak power.

We report on a communication link demonstration in a 1 km simulated atmospheric turbulent channel with a wide-spectral mode-locking fiber laser. Wide-spectral beams are part of the supercontinuum, which is generated from pumping a dispersion-shifted fiber by an active mode-locked fiber laser. In addition, the propagation effects of wide-spectral beams were investigated experimentally in a simulated atmosphere channel. The characteristics of bit error rate and eye pattern before and after turbulence were analyzed, respectively. The experimental results showed that the sensitivity of the whole link reaches $-40\mathrm{dBm}$. The scintillation index of free-space optical communication between wide-spectral partially coherent and narrow-spectral coherent beams was compared, which indicates that the wide-spectral partially coherent optical communication link is more resistant to atmospheric turbulence. We experimentally verified that the scintillation index of wide-spectral carriers is dependent on coherent degree rather than spectral width.

We propose and experimentally investigate a multiwavelength Brillouin fiber laser (MBFL) with triple frequency spacing by employing a modular structure. In this scheme, we obtain nine channels optimized with frequency spacing of 0.259 nm. The single, double, and triple Brillouin frequency spacing for the MBFL can be easily realized by utilizing this modular structure. The impact of Brillouin pump (BP) power, BP wavelength, and erbium-ytterbium-doped fiber amplifier (EYDFA) output power on the performance of the MBFL is investigated, respectively. We also study the generation of beating frequency microwave signals based on single, double, and triple frequency spacing MBFL. 10.5 GHz, 21.48 GHz, and 31.77 GHz microwave signals with 3 dB linewidth of 16.4 MHz, 15.2 MHz, and 12.8 MHz are generated, respectively.

This paper firstly presents the channel modeling for full duplex (FDX) modulating retro-reflector (MRR) free-space optical (FSO) systems under weak-to-strong turbulence conditions. The uplink channel in the MRR FSO communication is a conventional FSO channel that is typically modeled by a Gamma-Gamma (ΓΓ) distribution. The downlink channel is jointly affected by the turbulence-induced fading in two opposite passes as well as the reflection effect of the MRR, and its normalized channel fading can be described as the product of two correlated ΓΓ random variables (RVs). The channel model of the downlink is approximated by a single α-μ distribution via moment matching method. Then, we propose an effective signal modulation and detection scheme to achieve the FDX communication. The bit error rates (BERs) of the MRR FSO systems are calculated by the analytical formulas that are derived based on the channel models of the two links, and also evaluated by the Monte-Carlo simulations to validate the derived formulas. The effect of system configurations and propagation conditions on the system performance is investigated, and the optimal designs to make a trade-off between the uplink and downlink performance are discussed.