Observation of narrow linewidth spikes in the coherent Brillouin random fiber laser

Abstract

We observed narrow-linewidth lasing spikes in a coherent Brillouin random fiber laser, which uses a continuous-wave fiber laser as the pump source. In this random laser configuration, stimulated Brillouin scattering in a section of conventional single-mode fiber acts as the gain mechanism, while Rayleigh scattering in another section of the nonuniform fiber provides randomly distributed feedback. Above the lasing threshold, coherent random lasing spikes, with a linewidth of ~10 Hz, are measured at the top of the Brillouin gain spectrum. It results from high quality coherent resonance of the Brillouin Stokes light in this open laser cavity.