Impact of external optical feedback on the beat notes of dual-polarization fiber lasers

We present a theoretical analysis and an experimental study of the impacts of external optical feedback on dual-frequency fiber lasers. The external optical feedback can effectively suppress the phase noise of the beat notes of dual-frequency fiber lasers, provided some requirements are satisfied. The polarization of the optical feedback is important for the fiber laser’s stability, and it can also tune the beat note frequency. A side effect of external optical feedback, as demonstrated in the experiments, is lowering the sensitivity of the dual-frequency fiber laser-based sensors, although such degradation is not obvious.