External cavity lasing pumped stimulated Brillouin scattering in a high Q microcavity.

Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in a microcavity is usually realized by employing a wavelength tunable external cavity diode laser (TECDL) as the pump source. In this Letter, we report the observation of SBS in a high Q microcavity based on a TECDL-free scheme. The microcavity is employed as a mode-reflecting mirror for constructing a fiber-ring laser and, simultaneously, pumped by the fiber-ring lasing with intrinsic resonance latching. Several regimes are observed in a microcavity with a diameter of ∼215 µm, such as single lasing pumped SBS and multiple regular lasing pumped SBSs (single or cascaded). The microwave signals from the beat notes of the composite output lasing are measured with full-width at half-maximum on the scale of kilohertz at ∼11 and ∼22 GHz, indicating the high coherence between the pump and the Brillouin lasing.

Generation of optical frequency combs in a fiber-ring/microresonator laser system.

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a simple scheme for generating optical frequency combs (OFCs) in a fiber-ring/microresonator laser system. The ultrahigh Q whispering gallery mode microresonator is employed both as a mode reflection mirror to generate erbium lasing and as a Kerr-nonlinearity initiator that introduces optical parametric oscillation signals to form OFCs. By controlling the coupling position between the fiber taper and microresonator, optimizing the fiber polarization, as well as the pump power from a 974 nm laser diode (LD), versatile OFCs can be tuned out from single-wavelength states. The OFCs have single, multiple, or combined free spectral ranges. In addition, a Raman-gain-assisted OFC is also observed with a bandwidth of ∼230 nm. This LD-pumped and multifunctional laser system could find applications in precision spectroscopy, biochemical sensing, and optical fiber communication systems.