A fiber-based ring cavity tunable laser is disclosed in this invention that has
full range high speed tuning achieved by combining a optical tunable filter with
a period comb-shaped filter with central wavelengths anchored on International
Telecommunication Union (ITU) grids. By using segments of dispersion managed fibers
with predefined segment lengths the group delay differences are also reduced. The
temperature sensitivity of optical transmission is also reduced by arranging the
longitudinal axis of different segments of the optical fibers to orient with a
relative angular difference, e.g., with an angular difference of ninety degrees.