Tunable fiber lasers have the advantages of good beam quality, high integration, and adjustable output wavelength, and they are widely used in fields such as optical fiber communication and optical fiber sensing. The fiber filter is one of the key components of tunable fiber lasers. Among the various filters currently used, multimode interference filters have the advantages of simple structure, convenient implementation, flexible tuning methods, and convenient spectral range design. The structures of multimode interference filters based on multimode fibers, no-core fibers, multi-core fibers, tapered fibers, and other special fibers are introduced in this paper. The working principles and tuning methods are analyzed and the research progress of tunable fiber lasers based on these filters is summarized. Finally, the development trend of tunable fiber lasers based on multimode interference filters is discussed. The rapid development and applications of multimode interference filters can help improve the performance of continuous and pulse lasers as well as promote the practicality of tunable fiber lasers.
Keywords: multi-core fiber; multimode fiber; multimode interference filter; no-core fiber; tapered fiber; tunable fiber laser.