We experimentally demonstrate the chaotic generation in a figure-of-eight erbium-doped fiber laser (F8L) with an optical fiber ring (OFR). With an appropriate combination of polarization controllers, we find that the fiber laser exhibits period-doubling route to chaos, and the chaotic self-synchronous dynamics has a tendency to be reduced significantly. The experimental results show the tendency is related to the interference and the nonlinear phase shift of light in the optical fiber ring. Meanwhile, the chaotic dynamics is related to the polarization state and pump power.
We experimentally obtain the route from period doubling to chaos in an active optical fiber ring resonator (AOFRR) with optical injection. The results show that the AOFRR is sensitive to external optical injection and demonstrate various dynamic characteristics. Meanwhile, the change of the injection strength can cause the output of the AOFRR to become periodic or chaotic. It can be confirmed that all the dynamic characteristics of the system are due to the interaction of the semiconductor laser with the erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA).