10 GHz regeneratively mode-locked semiconductor optical amplifier fiber ring laser and its linewidth characteristics.

A 10 GHz regeneratively mode-locked semiconductor optical amplifier fiber ring laser with a picosecond pulse duration was newly constructed, and the linewidth change of a longitudinal mode was measured for various laser cavity lengths using a delayed self-heterodyne detection method. The detected line shape was approximately Gaussian for cavity lengths of 3.4-171 m. This result indicates that the laser linewidth depends strongly on thermal or acoustic cavity length fluctuations. The linewidth was proportional to the inverse square root of the cavity length, and a linewidth of 1.7 kHz was obtained for a cavity length of 171 m.