University of Ottawa

Purpose

The research goal for Dr. Bao's team is to explore the role of random grating in reducing the noise in random fiber lasers, especially the relative intensity noise (RIN), comparing with commonly used Rayleigh scattering in optical fibers. The RIN noise is normally contributed by the mode moping and mode competition for the limited laser gain. To reduce the number of modes, we plan to use strong reflection in random grating of a few centimeters to replace kilometer long weak Rayleigh fiber. The entire laser cavity length is shorted with longer cavity mode length, and hence smaller number of modes. This approach has proved to reduce the RIN.