Optical and Quantum Electronics 31: 481±494, 1999.

Ó 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 481

Modelling of multi-line Brillouin/erbium ®bre lasers

DMITRII YU. STEPANOV1 AND GREGORY J. COWLE2

1
Australian Photonics Cooperative Research Centre, Optical Fibre Technology Centre, The University of
Sydney, 101 National Innovation Centre, Australian Technology Park, Eveleigh, NSW 1430, Australia
(E-mail: d.stepanov@oftc.usyd.edu.au); 2 Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton,
Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK

Received 10 December 1997; accepted 21 July 1998

Abstract. Laser sources with unique properties can be produced using a combination of nonlinear
Brillouin gain in single-mode optical ®bre (SMOF) and gain in erbium-doped ®bre (EDF). Narrow
bandwidth nonlinear gain from stimulated Brillouin scattering in SMOF determines the wavelength of
operation, and gain in EDF allows ecient operation and large power extraction. Various cascading
schemes based on the Brillouin/erbium ®bre laser (BEFL) as well as distinctive multi-wavelength versions
of the BEFL were proposed, being able to produce 10 GHz combs of over 30 lines at 1550 nm. These
multi-wavelength sources may be of use in future dense wavelength-division multiplexing systems. We
explore fundamental aspects of BEFLs con®gured to generate multiple wavelengths with particular focus
on the e€ects of the Brillouin and EDF pumps on the number of lines and the relationship between the
intensities of the individual lines in the comb.

Key words: Brillouin/erbium ®bre laser (BEFL), multiple wavelengths

1. Introduction

With the installation of erbium-doped ®bre ampli®ers (EDFA), the loss in

optical ®bre networks is no longer an issue and wavelength-division multi-
plexing (WDM) systems are being introduced to explore the whole band-
width of the EDFA. The present ITU-T proposal recommends a channel
spacing of multiples of 100 GHz which would require 10 Gb/s or higher data
rates to use the EDFA bandwidth eciently. Apart from the costs of high-
speed electronics, the optical transmission at 10 Gb/s and higher rates
requires extensive compensation for the optical ®bre chromatic dispersion
which becomes a principal limitation on the capacity of the telecommuni-
cation links. It may become more cost e€ective to modulate transmitters at
moderate bit rates to reduce the e€ect of the dispersion and use closer
channel spacing than is currently recommended. Another important chal-
lenge in pushing WDM technology is to reduce the cost per wavelength. As
the number of channels is increased, the requirements on stability and pre-
cision of the optical channel spacing become very stringent. This requires
multi-wavelength laser transmitters (Zirngibl 1997) with accurate wavelength
selection and high wavelength stability. A multi-wavelength laser source in a
482 D. YU. STEPANOV AND G. J. COWLE

WDM network must also have a high ®bre-coupled output power and an
accurate separation between the channels. Both the widely used distributed
feedback (DFB) and distributed Bragg re¯ector (DBR) semiconductor diode
lasers have diculties of wavelength stability and selectivity.
Brillouin/erbium ®bre lasers (BEFL) (Cowle et al. 1997) have been dem-
onstrated as ecient methods to generate 10 GHz and 20 GHz laser combs
(Cowle and Stepanov 1996a,b; Cowle et al. 1997; Stepanov and Cowle 1997a)
and may be attractive as sources for dense WDM (DWDM) systems. BEFLs
operate with a unique combination of Brillouin gain in single-mode optical
®bre (SMOF) and gain from erbium-doped ®bre (EDF). In a single-wave-
length BEFL, narrow bandwidth nonlinear gain from stimulated Brillouin
scattering (SBS) in SMOF precisely determines the wavelength of operation,
which is down-shifted from the Brillouin pump frequency by approximately
10 GHz in the 1.55 lm wavelength region, and a gain in the EDF allows
ecient operation and large power extraction. Cascading the Stokes shifting
process in a single laser cavity using various techniques results in multi-
wavelength operation of the BEFL with accurate line spacing. Compared to
traditional Brillouin ®bre lasers (BFL) capable of producing multiple Stokes
waves (Toyama et al. 1993), critically coupled resonators and cavity
matching of the Brillouin pump frequency are not required to achieve e-
cient operation in BEFLs.
We (Stepanov and Cowle 1997b) focused on some fundamental aspects of
BEFLs con®gured to generate only a single wavelength. In this paper, we
explore theoretically a multi-wavelength con®guration reported in (Cowle and
Stepanov 1996a) . However, the theory can be readily extended to describe
the large variety of other experimentally demonstrated multi-line BEFLs.
Section 2 contains a summary of the multi-wavelength laser concept. In
Section 3 we develop a theoretical description of the multi-wavelength BEFL
and in Section 4 compare the results of our simulations with experiment.

2. Multi-line BEFL concept

Most of the BEFLs demonstrated to date have been constructed using non-
critically coupled unidirectional ring resonators. Large output losses of the
BEFL cavity are compensated with the gain in the EDF and an intracavity
isolator ensures unidirectional operation to avoid injection locking of the
laser to the Brillouin pump and spatial hole burning in the EDF. The concept
of a single-wavelength BEFL can be described as the addition of the Brillouin
gain generated by a narrow-linewidth Brillouin pump in the section of SMOF
located in the ring to the gain produced by the EDF which is just less than the
threshold gain of the laser cavity. The additional gain in the resonant
direction over that produced by the EDF allows laser action to occur within a
MODELLING OF MULTI-LINE BRILLOUIN/ERBIUM FIBRE LASERS 483
small bandwidth at a frequency Stokes-shifted from the Brillouin pump by
mB ˆ 2nva =kp , determined by the e€ective refractive index n of the SMOF,
velocity of sound va in the SMOF and the Brillouin pump wavelength kp ; the
bandwidth is typically 10±20 MHz in the 1550 nm region. The small mag-
nitude of the Brillouin gain dictates that the BEFL wavelength of operation
must be close to that at which the same resonator would operate as a free-
running erbium-doped ring laser without the Brillouin pump. Due to the
homogeneous nature of the Brillouin gain, the BEFL operates in a single
longitudinal mode. The narrow linewidth of the laser (less than 2 kHz
because of the long cavity length) and high output power provided by the
EDF make the BEFL ideal for use as a Brillouin pump.
The topology of the multi-line BEFL, illustrated in Fig. 1, is similar to the
basic single-wavelength BEFL (Cowle and Yu. Stepanov 1996c) except for
the reverse S-shaped ®bre section. The multi-wavelength mode of operation
of the BEFL is achieved via partial reinjection of the BEFL output in the
non-resonant direction to generate Brillouin gain for the next Brillouin line.
The concept is to use Stokes lines generated in the laser cavity as Brillouin
pumps to cascade Brillouin gain in the same section of the SMOF. The BEFL
shown in Fig. 1 should be viewed functionally as a cascade of separate lasers
sharing the same cavity, with the output of each connected to the input of the
subsequent one. Although the concept of the multi-line BEFLs is somewhat
similar to multiple Stokes wave generators (Toyama et al. 1993) based on
traditional BFLs, the interaction of the Brillouin and EDF gains through
circulating lasing signals makes the operation of multi-line BEFLs distinc-
tively di€erent. The power carried by each line depends mainly on the
pumping level of the EDF rather than on the Brillouin pump power.

Fig. 1. Schematic representation of multi-line Brillouin/erbium ®bre laser.

484 D. YU. STEPANOV AND G. J. COWLE

The number of lines in the comb in the BEFL operation is limited by a

number of factors. All lines share the same EDF, limiting the total output of
the laser, but the Brillouin pump has to exceed a threshold value for each
subsequent line to be generated, requiring a minimum power in each BEFL
line to seed the next line. The gain of the EDF as a function of wavelength is
not ¯at, hence the Brillouin gain requirement for each line may be di€erent.
The directionality of the Brillouin gain also requires reinjection of the signal
in the reverse direction for comb generation, resulting in a resonator loss with
consequent power wastage.
In the following section, we will develop a theory to describe the unique
mode of operation of the multi-line BEFL shown in Fig. 1 which will allow
us to ®nd the relationships between the line powers, determine the number of
lines in the comb and calculate the output characteristics of the laser.

3. Theory of multi-line BEFL

The interaction between the Brillouin pump and the Stokes signal in the
process of stimulated Brillouin scattering can be described by the following
coupled equations (Tang 1966) for the light intensities

dI00
ˆ ‡gB I1 I00 ; (1a)
dz
dI1
ˆ ‡gB I00 I1; (1b)
dz

where I00 and I1 are the Brillouin pump and the Stokes signal intensities in the
laser cavity, respectively, prime sign is used to mark the light waves propa-
gating in the non-resonant direction ÿz of the laser cavity and gB is the
Brillouin gain coecient at unit Brillouin pump intensity. We ignore losses in
the laser cavity as the EDF gain is used to compensate for them. However,
when the intensity of the Stokes line reinjected into the non-resonant direc-
tion of the laser cavity is high enough to generate the next Stokes line, an
additional loss for the ®rst Stokes lasing signal is introduced as this signal
interacts with the reinjected second Stokes line. In the case of N Stokes lines
generated simultaneously, the interaction between them in the section of the
SMOF of length LB can be derived from the following system of coupled
equations

dIk0
ˆ ÿgB ‰Ikÿ1 ÿ Ik‡1 ŠIk0 ; …2a†
dz
dIk  0 0

ˆ ‡gB Ikÿ1 ÿ Ik‡1 Ik ; …2b†
dz
MODELLING OF MULTI-LINE BRILLOUIN/ERBIUM FIBRE LASERS 485
where k ˆ 1; . . . ; N . The ratio Ik0 =Ik ˆ K1 K2 depends on the coupling ratio of
the couplers K1 and K2 used to form the reverse S-shaped ®bre section in
Fig. 1.
It should be noted that the Brillouin gain and loss generated in each in-
teraction are not shared with other lines since the phases of all light waves
circulating in and reinjected into the laser cavity are not correlated. There-
fore, the result of scattering of a reinjected Ij0 line on an acoustic wave created
through electrostriction by Ik0 and Ik‡1 lines will be washed out as the phase
of the acoustic grating arbitrarily changes with respect to the phase of the
reinjected line unless j ˆ k.
Since the lasing action is supported only in the ÿz direction, we are not
concerned with Equation (2a) and will concentrate on Equation (2b). In the
small Brillouin gain approximation and assuming that the EDF gain is ¯at in
the region of interest, the terms in brackets should be set equal in order to
reach lasing threshold at all N lines simultaneously, i.e.

I00 ÿ I20 ˆ


ˆ Ik0 ÿ Ik‡2

0
ˆ


ˆ IN0 ÿ2 ÿ IN0 ˆ IN0 ÿ1 : …3†

It follows from this system of equations that there should be a balance

between the line powers to achieve multi-wavelength mode of the BEFL
operation. The solution of this system is shown in Table 1 with I0 and I1 as
variables, where we de®ned cB ˆ K1 K2 gB LB . There is no light in the cavity
corresponding to I0 , which was introduced as an arti®cial variable to simplify
the results presented in Table 1. It is related to the intensity of the input
Brillouin pump IB injected into the cavity through coupler K0 as

K0 …1 ÿ K1 †
I0 ˆ IB …4†
K1 K2

and would correspond to the Brillouin pump intensity at the output of the
isolator where the intensities of the Brillouin lines are calculated.
The homogeneous bandwidth of the EDF at room temperature is much
larger than the separation between the Brillouin lines and, therefore, the lines

Table 1. Intensities of the BEFL lines, total intensity and the value of the Brillouin gain vs Brillouin
pump and the ®rst Stokes line intensities for even and odd number of lines in the comb
Intensity N ˆ 2n lines N ˆ 2n ‡ 1 lines
k n‡1ÿk
2kth line I2k ˆ I0 ÿ I1 I2k ˆ I0
n n‡1
nÿk k
…2k ‡ 1†th line I2k‡1 ˆ I1 I2k‡1 ˆ I1 ÿ I0
n n‡1
PN PN
Total IR  jˆ1 Ij ˆ nI0 IR  jˆ1 Ij ˆ …n ‡ 1†I1
   
I1 I0
Brillouin gain GB ˆ exp cB GB ˆ exp cB
n n‡1
486 D. YU. STEPANOV AND G. J. COWLE

will share the same EDF gain. At the same time Brillouin gain is not shared
as we emphasized earlier, and the lines experience the same Brillouin gain as
indicated by Equation (3). Therefore, we can ignore spectral features in
further derivations of the multi-line BEFL output characteristics and
consider only the total intensity of the BEFL lines. The process of the multi-
wavelength SBS in the SMOF section of the laser can be viewed as wave-
length demultiplexing of the total signal, further equal narrow-bandwidth
ampli®cation in each channel and subsequent multiplexing of the channels.
The growth of the travelling wave lasing signal intensity Is …z† in the EDF,
assuming homogeneously saturable gain and negligible distributed losses, is
given by Siegman (1986)

dIs … z† gE IE
ˆ Is … z†; …5†
dz 1 ‡ Is … z†=Isat

where gE is the EDF unsaturated gain coecient at unit pump intensity, IE is

the EDF pump and Isat is the saturation intensity of the EDF. With in-
creasing signal intensity, the gain in the EDF saturates at the value equal to
the resonator loss.
To complete the mathematical description of the multi-line BEFL we
need to impose boundary conditions, which for the unidirectional ring
cavity shown in Fig. 1 include power extraction from the laser through all
the three couplers having K0 , K1 , and K2 output coupling ratios. In the small
Brillouin gain approximation, pump depletion can be neglected in each of
the equations in system (2), and the equations can be decoupled and solved
separately
 ÿ 0
  
Ik ˆ Ik0 exp ‡gB Ikÿ1 0
ÿ Ik‡1 LB ˆ Ik0 exp ‡gB IN0 ÿ1 LB  Ik0 GB ; …6†
 
where GB ˆ exp gB IN0 ÿ1 LB is the Brillouin gain for each line. Equation (5)
can be easily integrated over the length LE of the EDF (Stepanov and Cowle
1997b), and for the total intensity IR of the circulating BEFL lines in the
section of the laser just after the isolator (see Fig. 1) one can obtain
lE ÿ

IR ˆ IE ÿ IEthr ‡ DIEthr ; …7†
1 ÿ KGB

where

1 1 1 1
IEthr  ln  Isat ln ; …8†
gE LE K lE K

is the EDF pump power threshold at no Brillouin pump (free-running EDF

laser) and
MODELLING OF MULTI-LINE BRILLOUIN/ERBIUM FIBRE LASERS 487
gB LB 0 l
DIEthr  IN ÿ1  B IN0 ÿ1 ; …9†
gE LE lE

is the reduction in this threshold in the BEFL mode of operation when the
laser is Brillouin pumped and we de®ned

K  …1 ÿ K0 †…1 ÿ K1 †…1 ÿ K2 †; …10a†

lE  gE Isat LE ; …10b†
lB  gB Isat LB : …10c†

Neglecting tiny changes in the slope of the output characteristic (7) intro-
duced by the Brillouin gain, we obtain
ÿ

IR …1 ÿ K † ÿ Isat ln GB ˆ lE IE ÿ IEthr : …11†

It follows from the obtained solution that an increase in the pumping level of
the EDF may eventually a€ect both the BEFL output intensity and the
Brillouin gain. As can be seen from Table 1, when the number of lasing
Stokes lines is even, i.e. N ˆ 2n, the total power in the BEFL output depends
only on the Brillouin pump intensity IR ˆ nI0 and remains constant as long as
the Brillouin pump does not change. The EDF pump power is used in this
case to compensate for the reduction in the Brillouin gain (from exp ‰cB I0 =nŠ
to exp ‰cB I0 =…n ‡ 1†Š) caused by the increase in the intensity of the last lasing
line I2n . The intensity in this line increases up to the value of I0 =…n ‡ 1†,
whereupon it becomes capable of generating the next line. The solution for
the intensity I1 of the ®rst line vs EDF pump intensity can be found using
Equation (15) and Table 1
 
1 lE ÿ thr

n2 …1 ÿ K †
I1 ˆ ÿn IE ÿ IE ‡ I0 ; …12†
K1 K2 lB lB

and indicates a large negative slope in the ®rst line output characteristic
which increases with the number of lines.
When the number of lasing lines is odd, i.e. N ˆ 2n ‡ 1, the Brillouin gain
for those lines remains constant at the level of exp‰cB I0 =…n ‡ 1†Š and the total
power increases until the intensity of the last lasing line I2n‡1 achieves the
value I0 =…n ‡ 1† and becomes capable of generating the next line. The solu-
tion for the intensity I1 of the ®rst line vs EDF pump intensity in this case can
be expressed as
" #
1 lE ÿ
K 1 K2 lB
I1 ˆ IE ÿ IEthr ‡ I0 : …13†
1ÿK n‡1 …n ‡ 1†2
488 D. YU. STEPANOV AND G. J. COWLE

The slope in the output characteristic is positive and is less for a larger
number of lines. The number of lines for a given EDF pumping level can be
estimated from Equation (11)

1 IE ÿ IEthr 1 IE ÿ IEthr
2 lE ÿ 1ON O2 lE ‡ 1: …14†
1ÿK I0 1ÿK I0

The number of lines increases with the increase in the EDF pumping level
and is reduced with the increase in the Brillouin pump. The ®rst conclusion is
intuitively clear while the second one requires a physical explanation. The
Brillouin pump I0 sets the starting value for the Brillouin gain in the multi-
wavelength BEFL and, therefore, sets a threshold for the Stokes line to
become a Brillouin pump. This threshold value is reduced as the number of
lines increases, however, it still depends on the Brillouin pump intensity.
Clearly, the higher the Brillouin pump is, the higher is the threshold
and, hence, higher EDF pumping is required to achieve the same number
of lines.
Relatively simple solutions obtained in this section become much more
complicated with the account of a possible slope in the EDF gain spectral
characteristics or a polarisation mismatch between the lines counter-propa-
gating in the section of the SMOF. In scalar-type stimulated Brillouin scat-
tering, the Stokes ®eld tends to reproduce the polarisation of the Brillouin
pump. The component of Stokes wave polarised orthogonal to the pump is
not ampli®ed (Zeldovich et al. 1985) as well as the Brillouin pump is not
scattered into this orthogonal component. In the multi-line BEFL con®gu-
ration shown in Fig. 1 there may be a polarisation mismatch between the
lasing Stokes line and the next line reinjected through the reverse S-shaped
®bre section. The solutions for this case are shown in Tables 2 and 3 where
for readability we de®ned a… p; n† and A… p; n† as

Table 2. Intensities of the BEFL lines, total intensity and the value of the Brillouin gain vs Brillouin
pump and the ®rst Stokes line intensities for even number of lines in the comb in the assumption of a
polarisation mismatch
Intensity N ˆ 2n lines
 
1 1 ÿ pk
2kth line I2k ˆ k I0 ÿ n
I1
p 1ÿp
1 ÿ pnÿk
…2k ‡ 1†th line I2k‡1 ˆ I1
1 ÿ pn 
1 a… p; n†
Total IR ˆ n …1 ÿ pn †I0 ÿ I1
p …1 ÿ p† 1 ÿ pn
 
1ÿp
Brillouin gain GB ˆ exp cB I1
1 ÿ pn
 
…1 ÿ p†…1 ÿ p † n ÿ
1 ÿ pn
1st line I1 ˆ ÿlE pn IE ÿ IEthr ‡ I0
A… p; n† 1ÿp
MODELLING OF MULTI-LINE BRILLOUIN/ERBIUM FIBRE LASERS 489
Table 3. Intensities of the BEFL lines, total intensity and the value of the Brillouin gain vs Brillouin
pump and the ®rst Stokes line intensities for odd number of lines in the comb in the assumption of a
polarisation mismatch
Intensity N ˆ 2n ‡ 1 lines
1 ÿ pn‡1ÿk
2kth line I2k ˆ I0
1 ÿ pn‡1
 
1 1 ÿ pk
…2k ‡ 1†th line I2k‡1 ˆ k I1 ÿ I 0
p 1 ÿ pn‡1
 
1 ÿ
a… p; n†
Total IR ˆ n 1 ÿ pn‡1 I1 ÿ I 0
p …1 ÿ p† 1 ÿ pn‡1
 
1ÿp
Brillouin gain GB ˆ exp cB I0
1 ÿ pn‡1
 
1ÿp n
ÿ thr

A… p; n†
1st line I1 ˆ l p I E ÿ I ‡ I 0
1 ÿ pn‡1 E E
…1 ÿ p†…1 ÿ pn‡1 †

a… p; n† ˆ 1 ÿ …2n ‡ 1†…1 ÿ p†pn ÿ p2n‡1 …15a†

2
A… p; n† ˆ …1 ÿ K †a… p; n† ‡ K1 K2 lB pn …1 ÿ p† : …15b†

To derive the solutions, we assumed that a measure of polarisation mismatch

p (ranging from 1 for the perfectly matched case to 0 for the completely
unmatched case) between a BEFL line In and a Stokes-shifted reinjected
0
BEFL line In‡1 will change the balance Equation (3)

I00 ÿ pI20 ˆ


ˆ In0 ÿ pIn‡2

0
ˆ


ˆ IN0 ÿ2 ÿ pIN0 ˆ IN0 ÿ1 : …16†

The obtained results will be used in the following section to simulate the
output characteristics of the muti-line BEFL and the simulation results will
be compared to the experimental results.
Various cascading schemes proposed (Cowle and Stepanov 1996a) are
based on tapping a BEFL line from the laser cavity and feeding it back into
the cavity in the non-resonant direction and can be described using the
developed theory. The theory can also be readily extended to the distinctive
multi-wavelength versions of the BEFL (Cowle et al. 1997; Stepanov and
Cowle 1997a) which have advantages over the cascading techniques.

4. Experimental results and simulations

We start our simulations based on the results of the previous section in the
simplest case described in Table I. The numbers in the plots are approximate,
based on the BEFL eciency measurements presented in Stepanov and
Cowle (1996). The output characteristics for each Stokes line are shown in
Fig. 2(a). The horizontal dashed line corresponds to the Brillouin pump
490 D. YU. STEPANOV AND G. J. COWLE

Fig. 2. (a) Calculated output characteristics vs EDF pump power for each Stokes line in the assumption
of no polarisation mismatch. The horizontal dashed line corresponds to the Brillouin pump power. (b)
Calculated optical spectrum of the multi-line BEFL output mixed with the Brillouin pump. The EDF
pump power used in the simulation corresponds to the vertical dashed line in ®gure (a).

power. The interesting features of the plot are negative slopes for odd lines
when the number of lines is even and zero slopes for the even lines when the
number of lines is odd. We can conclude from this plot that the laser is likely
to operate in an odd number of lines, as the range of the EDF powers where
the BEFL can operate in an even number of lines is quite small. To simulate
the optical spectrum we would observe using an optical spectrum analyser
(OSA) with a resolution of about 0.08 nm ( 10 GHz), we take a cross
MODELLING OF MULTI-LINE BRILLOUIN/ERBIUM FIBRE LASERS 491
section of the plot in Fig. 2(a) along the vertical dashed line to ®nd the line
powers at a certain level of the EDF pumping and spectrally broaden the
lines to account for the spectral response function of the OSA which we
assumed to be Gaussian with FWHM ˆ 9 GHz. The resulting optical
spectrum vs Stokes shift from the Brillouin pump is shown in Fig. 2(b). The
attenuated Brillouin pump is also shown in the plot. We should note that the
tails of the response function at each wavelength would a€ect the measured

Fig. 3. (a) Measured output characteristics vs EDF drive current for each Stokes line. (b) Laser comb
generated using multi-line BEFL mixed with the Brillouin pump.
492 D. YU. STEPANOV AND G. J. COWLE

intensities of neighbouring lines and should be taken into account in the

experiment. The shape of the spectrum looks very similar to that observed in
the experiment which is shown in Fig. 3(b).
We measured the output characteristics of the multi-wavelength BEFL
shown in Fig. 1 and the experimental results are presented in Fig. 3(a). The
important di€erence between Fig. 3(a) and Fig. 2(a) is that in the experiment,

Fig. 4. (a) Calculated output characteristics vs EDF pump power for each Stokes line in the assumption
of a polarisation mismatch. The horizontal dashed line corresponds to the Brillouin pump power. (b)
Calculated optical spectrum of the multi-line BEFL output mixed with the Brillouin pump. The EDF
pump power used in the simulation corresponds to the vertical dashed line in ®gure (a).
MODELLING OF MULTI-LINE BRILLOUIN/ERBIUM FIBRE LASERS 493
the larger the even number of lines, the smaller the negative slopes in the
output characteristics of the odd lines. This contradicts the discussion of
Equation (12) in Section 3. Also, the intensity in the ®rst line falls to a value
higher than I0 =2 when there are two Stokes lines in the laser output, incon-
sistent with Table 1.
A polarisation mismatch between the lines counter-propagating in the
section of the SMOF may be a reason for the observed deviation of the
experimental results from the theory. The results for this case obtained in
Section 3 are dicult to interpret visually from Tables 2 and 3. Figure 4
illustrates our simulations based on the derived formulas. The increase in the
plot disorder with the increase in the number of lines can be explained by the
reduction in the Brillouin gain, and as a result, lower stability of the laser
against EDF gain perturbations. Overall, the simulated output characteristics
of the BEFL lines look very similar to the experimental situation except
for some minor di€erences that we are unable to explain at this stage. A slope
in the EDF gain spectral characteristics might be responsible for these fea-
tures but analytically it is a more dicult case and we do not consider it in
this paper.

5. Conclusion

In conclusion, we have developed a theory to describe the unique mode of

operation of the multi-line Brillouin/erbium ®bre laser. This theory can be
readily extended to describe the large variety of other experimentally dem-
onstrated multi-line BEFLs. We have found the relationships between the
BEFL line powers and calculated the output characteristics of the laser. We
have shown that the power carried by each line depends mainly on the
pumping level of the EDF rather than on the Brillouin pump power, a dis-
tinctive di€erence with respect to conventional Brillouin ®bre lasers. We
compared the results of our simulations based on the developed theory with
the experimental results and found a good correspondence.

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