Significant intensity noise suppression of single-frequency fiber laser via cascading semiconductor optical amplifier

Significant suppression of the intensity noise of single-frequency fiber laser is demonstrated with a cascading semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). Based on the nonlinear amplification dynamics of the SOA, intensity noise reduction would take place in every transmission of the laser signal. By cascading two SOAs, a maximum noise suppression of 30 dB at around the resonant relaxation oscillation (RRO) frequency as well as a suppression bandwidth of up to 50 MHz is realized. Moreover, the RRO peak is restricted to a significant narrow frequency band, outside of which the laser noise approaches the noise floor of the measurement. The remarkable amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) introduced by the SOA is entirely filtered out with a fiber Bragg grating (FBG). Furthermore, no noticeable degradation of laser frequency noise has been observed.