The dynamics of erbium-doped fiber ring lasers undergoing wavelength t
uning is examined, The relaxation oscillations and mode build-up time
are characterized. An all-optical damping technique which is capable o
f complete elimination of relaxation oscillations is analyzed, and mea
surements on a tunable erbium-doped fiber lasers are reported, An anal
ytical solution is derived for the mode build-up time of tunable fiber
lasers, Limiting parameters for the design of a high-speed tunable fi
ber laser are identified, An equalization technique for obtaining unif
orm switching speed is described.