Single-wavelength-pump bi-directional hybrid fiber amplifier for bi-directional local area network application

This paper proposes a novel bi-directional hybrid fiber amplifier using a single-wavelength pump laser diode (LD) at 1495 nm. The hybrid amplifier is theoretically applied in a 50 km bi-directional local area network (LAN) with 26 ch × 10 Gb/s for bi-directional transmission. Thirteen C-band channels serve as downlink signals while the other 13 L-band channels are employed as uplink signals. Without loss of generality, four channels (two from each band) are experimentally analyzed. Erbium doped fiber (EDF) provides amplification for the C-band channels and Raman amplification amplifies the L-band channels. The pump efficiency is improved by employing a double-pass scheme for both the Erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) and Raman fiber amplifier (RFA). The chromatic dispersion incurred by all the channels is precisely compensated for by inserting a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) array in appropriate locations along the dispersion compensating fiber (DCF) segments. Moreover, gain equalization of all the channels is achieved by adjusting the FBG reflectivity. Both the simulation results and experimental measurements confirm the proposed device feasibility and potential application in a bi-directional LAN.     

Gain and gain-flatness improved photonic crystal fiber Raman amplifier based on a dual-pass amplification configuration with single pump laser

A gain and gain-flatness improved L-band dual-pass Raman fiber amplifier (RFA) utilizing a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) as gain medium is demonstrated. By introducing complementary gain spectra of typical forward and backward pumping single-pass RFA using the same PCF, we finally achieve average net gain level of 22.5 dB with a ±0.8 dB flattening gain in 20-nm bandwidth from 1595 nm to 1615 nm, which is rare in RFAs with only one single pump and no flattening filter. Compared with the single-pass pump configurations, gain level, flatness and bandwidth are greatly improved by using the dual-pass amplification configuration. The limitation of this configuration caused by multi-path interference (MPI) noise and stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is also discussed.     

S-band multiwavelength Brillouin Raman Fiber Laser

In this paper we propose and demonstrate an S-band Brillouin-Raman Fiber Laser (BRFL). The S-band BRFL utilizes a Dispersion Compensating Fiber (DCF) as the non-linear gain medium in a linear cavity configuration and amplified by two 1425 nm, 380 mW pumped Raman Fiber Amplifiers (RFAs). A Brillouin Pump (BP) signal of 1515 nm at 12 dBm in power is injected into the setup to generate Stokes lines via the Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) process. The S-band BRFL is able of generating a Brillouin comb with 32 Stokes lines with a flat peak output power of − 18 dBm. The best BP to Stokes power ratio of the system is determined to be 50:50, while a ratio of 70:30 is observed to generate Stokes with a higher peak power, but at the expense of the number of wavelengths. The S-band BRFL has many potential applications as multiwavelength sources for communications and sensors.     

Characteristics of low noise hybrid fiber amplifier

The characteristics of hybrid fiber amplifier (HFA) are investigated. HFA is composed of three stages: short-length EDFA pre-stage, DCF Raman amplifier, and power boosting EDFA. HFA has low noise figure, high output power, and also wide input power dynamic range. Gain control method of HFA is presented experimentally, and the transient gain excursion is suppressed to less than 0.5 dB at 3 dB channel add-drop. HFA can be used as line amplifier in optical transmission link even combined with distributed Raman amplifier due to wide input power dynamic range. The transmission performance of HFA is better than EDFA by more than 1.0 dB of Q-factor in 720 km SMF transmission.     

Simple tunable multiwavelength Brillouin/Erbium fiber laser utilizing short-length photonic crystal fiber

We have demonstrated a simple ring cavity tunable multiwavelength Brillouin/Erbium fiber laser (MWBEFL), in which 70 m highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber (HNL-PCF) is used as the Brillouin gain medium. The fiber laser utilizes recycling mechanism to enhance stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). The configuration that consists of only 3 optical components is easy to be integrated and improves the practicality. At the maximum 1480 nm pump power of 110 mW and the Brillouin pump power of 3 dBm, 10 stable output channels with more than 10 dB optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) and 0.078 nm channel spacing could achieve 10 nm tuning ranges.     

Medium power single-mode single-wavelength fiber laser

Medium-power, single-mode, single-wavelength fiber laser working at room temperature using a polarization-maintaining erbium-ytterbium co-doped fiber as the gain medium, and an un-pumped elliptical core erbium-doped fiber as a saturable absorber to reduce linewidth and mode hopping of the lasing wavelength is reported. The effects of length, erbium ion concentration, and polarization-maintaining property of the saturable absorber were explored. The output power of the laser was more than 100 mW and the lasing line was stable for more than 3 h with an intensity fluctuation of less than 0.2 dB. The laser linewidth (FWHM = Full width at half maximum) was 7.5 MHz and the signal to noise ratio was more than 50 dB. The output of the laser was measured using an optical spectrum analyzer (OSA) of resolution 1.25 GHz and a scanning Fabry-Perot spectrum analyzer (SFPSA) of resolution 6.7 MHz.     

Dual-wavelength high-power Yb-doped double-clad fiber laser based on a few-mode fiber Bragg grating

We report a high-power dual-wavelength Yb-doped double-clad fiber laser based on a few-mode fiber Bragg grating (FMFBG). The FMFBG was fabricated by using a piece of fiber in a length of fiber with a cutoff wavelength of 1225 nm, which supported two modes at 1060 nm. The laser was pumped by a fiber pigtailed laser diode working at 915 nm. Single-wavelength, dual-wavelength and triple-wavelength laser oscillations were observed when the fiber laser operated under different low pump powers. However, stable dual-wavelength operation was achieved at higher pump power of 3.9 W and remained unchanged until the output power reached 5.67 W under the maximum available pump power of 10.7 W. The laser wavelengths were centered at 1059.12 and 1060.80 nm with a full-width at half-maximum of 37 and 43 pm, respectively. The signal-to-noise-ratio was greater than 50 dB and the beam quality factor (M²) was about 1.9.     

Experimental and theoretical studies on ytterbium sensitized erbium-doped fiber amplifier

The performance of a high power erbium-ytterbium doped fiber amplifier (EYDFA) is investigated experimentally and theoretically. The EYDFA provides a flat gain with an output power higher than 23 dBm in the wavelength region from 1541 to 1565 nm using a multimode pumping at 927 nm. In the theoretical analysis, the rate and power propagation equations are solved to examine the effect of fiber length on the bandwidth of the gain spectra. In the C-band region, the small signal gain of the EYDFA varies from 30 to 34 dB with 10 m long erbium-ytterbium doped fiber (EYDF) while the 927 nm pump power is fixed at 3.5 W. It is shown that the calculated output power is in good agreement with the experimental results, verifying the feasibility of our theoretical model. However, the experimental result shows a relatively lower gain compared to the theoretical result due to the spurious reflection in the cavity and the insertion loss of the EYDF which were neglected in our theoretical model.     

New trend for optical signal-to-noise ratio of disturbed Raman fiber amplifier

In a distributed Raman fiber amplifier (DRFA), Raman amplification allows a lower signal launch powers to transverse the span above the noise floor while still increasing the optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR). It improves the noise figure and reduces the nonlinear penalty of fiber systems. In this paper, we demonstrate a new trend of OSNR at different pump configurations: forward, backward and bidirectional pumping for DRFAs as a function of fiber length. We also present the variation of OSNR with both input pump power and input signal power. It is found that forward pumping provides the highest OSNR, reaching its maximum value of 37 dB. However, backward pumping provides the smallest OSNR that has its maximum of 22 dB and the bidirectional pumping provides the moderate OSNR between the others having its peak of 26 dB.     

An effective numerical method for gain profile optimizations of multi pumped fiber Raman amplifiers

In this paper, we have solved propagation equations of multi-pump fiber Raman amplifier using Runge–Kutta (RK 4th order) numerical method and pump power evolutions along with the fiber length. They are used to calculate the net gain and gain ripple by varying the input signals powers for different fiber lengths. The pump powers are optimized by genetic algorithm and resulting net gain and gain ripple are reported graphically as well as in tabular form. The optimum minimum gain ripple is 0.26 dB for 1 mW input signal powers for 50 km fiber length. By increasing the fiber length gain ripple increases to 0.5 dB for 0.1 mW input signal power. In comparison to other methods reported in the literature, our method is simple to implement and efficient for numerical design of Raman amplification in optical communication systems.     

On duty cycle selection of RZ optical pulse to optimize the performance of dispersion compensated 10 Gbps single channel optical communication system using dispersion compensating fibers

We present results for duty cycle selection of optical RZ pulse to optimize the performance in 10 Gbps single channel dispersion compensated optical communication system. The system has link length of 240 km with two spans. Each of the spans consists of 120 km standard single mode fiber (SSMF) of 16 ps/nm/km, whose chromatic dispersion is compensated using pre-, post- and symmetrical-dispersion compensation schemes by 24 km dispersion compensating fiber (DCF) of −80 ps/nm/km. The performance of the three compensation schemes is compared by taking 8, 10, 12 and 14 dBm Er-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) power levels in the link with a duty cycle range (0.1-0.9) of RZ optical pulse. The graphical results obtained show a relationship among the duty cycle, EDFA power and dispersion compensation scheme which predicts the best performing duty cycle case. To optimize performance of the system, we recommend in general, duty cycle less than 0.3 and EDFA power below 8 dB irrespective of compensation scheme. However, with post compensation duty cycle less than 0.7 and EDFA power below 12 dBm give optimum performance. The results conclude that for the high value of duty cycle, post dispersion compensation scheme should be used.     

Gain clamped L-band EDFA with forward–backward pumping scheme using fiber Bragg grating

The paper proposes a novel two stage L-band erbium doped fiber amplifier with forward–backward pumping scheme for transmission of 32 wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) channels. It is gain clamped with an in-line fiber Bragg grating (FBG) to provide flat gain over 45 nm by restricting and reutilizing amplified spontaneous emission (ASE). We demonstrate that it provides an efficient small signal gain with minimum noise figure of over 20 dB and 5.5 dB, respectively, in the L-band region (1565–1610 nm) by comparing with its forward and backward pumped counterparts with fixed Er³⁺ fiber length of 20 m for −30 dBm/channel input power. We also obtain the gain and noise figure dependence as a function of each of the Er³⁺ fiber lengths, pump power (both 1480 and 980 nm), and temperature. Hence a 10 nm region (1580–1590 nm) has been acknowledged where temperature variations become constricted for 30 °C variations (15–45 °C).     

Thermally tunable microfiber knot resonator based erbium-doped fiber laser

A compact and tunable erbium-doped fiber laser is demonstrated using a highly doped fiber and a microfiber knot resonator (MKR) structure which is laid on the surface of a small peltier. The MKR functions as both a reflector and a tunable filter where tunability is achieved by varying the temperature of the resonator by heating the peltier. A stable laser output is achieved at the 1533 nm region with an optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) of 27 dB using a 65 mW of 980 nm pump power. The operating wavelength of the laser can be tuned from 1532.60 nm to 1533.49 nm as the temperature is increased from the room temperature of 24 to 90 °C. It is observed that the operating wavelength shifts to a longer wavelength as the temperature increases with an efficiency of 12.4 pm/°C. This is due to the thermally induced optical phase shift attributable to the changes in effective refractive index and optical path length of the MKR loop.     

Experimental and theoretical studies on a double-pass C-band bismuth-based erbium-doped fiber amplifier

Performance of a Bismuth-based Erbium-doped fiber amplifier is experimentally and theoretically investigated using 1480 nm pumping with double-pass scheme. In the theoretical analysis, the rate and power propagation equations are solved to examine the optimum length for the C-band operation as well as the gain and noise figure characteristics. The calculated small signal gain is 38 dB with gain variation of less than 3 dB. The measured gain is 4 dB lower due to spurious reflections which were ignored in the theoretical analysis. At input signal power of 0 dBm, a gain of 14.5 dB is obtained experimentally with gain variation of less than 1 dB within the wavelength region from 1530 to 1565 nm. The noise figure is less than 12 dB within this region.     

Double-pass erbium-doped zirconia fiber amplifier for wide-band and flat-gain operations

The double-pass erbium-doped zirconia fiber amplifier (EDZFA) is proposed and demonstrated to provide a wide-band amplification as well as flat-gain operation in both the C- and L-band regions using only a single-gain medium. The proposed amplifier utilizes an erbium-doped zirconia fiber (EDZF) with erbium ion concentration of 2800 ppm as a gain medium. The medium is fabricated in a ternary glass host, zirconia-yttria-aluminum codoped silica fiber through solution doping technique along with modified chemical vapor deposition (MCVD). Compared to a single-pass operation, the double-pass EDZFA shows a better gain performance. At input signal power of 0 dBm and the optimum EDZF length of 2 m, a flat gain of around 16 dB is achieved by the proposed double-pass amplifier with gain variation of approximately 2.5 dB throughout the wavelength range from 1530 to 1590 nm. However, the noise figure of the double-pass amplifier is slightly higher than that of the single-pass due to inefficient population inversion at the input part of the amplifier.     

Effect of steady-state conditions on self-pulsing characteristics of Yb-doped cw fiber lasers

Fiber laser resonator configurations have been analyzed theoretically on the basis of steady-state rate equations to optimize the laser conversion efficiency. Evolution of the pump- and signal powers and the saturated gain coefficient along the length of the laser medium has been simulated for high- and low-finesse resonators in forward- and backward pumping schemes. The corresponding fiber laser configurations have been setup to verify the results of simulation. Backward pumping configuration in an Yb-doped fiber laser has been found to be the most efficient, and in this configuration a maximum cw output power of 10.75 W in single transverse mode with an optical-to-optical conversion efficiency of 62.5% has been achieved. The laser output spectrum was peaked at 1093 nm with full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) line-width of about 9 nm. In the low-finesse resonator configuration, it has been found that experimental observations differ from theoretical simulation results. In this case, output power from both ends ceases to increase linearly beyond 1.8 W, and starts fluctuating due to the onset of strong random self-pulsing phenomenon. Our investigation shows that a non-uniform steady-state gain along the fiber length facilitates the self-pulsing process.     

Potential of the high modal bandwidth OM4 glass multimode fiber for the multi-services concept

In this paper, we report new results dealing with the wavelength multiplexing transmission scheme over the OM4 high modal bandwidth multimode fiber. Fiber bandwidth measurements both at 850 nm and 1300 nm clearly show the huge bandwidth/length product of this fiber. The simultaneous transmission of a high data rate baseband signal (10 GbE) at 850 nm and a radiofrequency MultiBand Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Ultra-Wide Band (band group 5-10 GHz) MB-OFDM UWB signal (480 Mbps) at 1300 nm is presented. The measurements - Bit Error Rate (BER) for the 10 GbE signal and Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) for the MB-OFDM UWB signal - that are hereby reported show safe results under the requirements of the corresponding communication standards; they give this architecture an affordable approach for home/office networking at high data rate in a joint fixed and wireless environment.     

Micro double tapered optical fiber sensors based on the evanescent field-effect and surface modification

A double tapered optical fiber sensor based on evanescent field-effect and surface modification technology was introduced in this work. Whether the liquid and gas molecules had polarities or not, they all could be detected by the sensors modified in different silane coupling agents. At the same time, the sensing characters of the single mode optical fiber with three different tapering lengths were researched, and it came to a conclusion that the optical fiber sensor had stronger evanescent field effect and higher sensitivity when length of tapered fiber was 30 mm. The functionalized tapered fibers modified by 3-aminopropyltrimethoxy silane (APTES) or 3-methylpropenylacyloxy propyltrimethoxy silane (MPAPTES), were employed to detect the polar or nonpolar molecules which had corresponding features. Further, the results of quantitative tests showed that the fiber optic sensor was sensitive to the change of the ethanol concentration and the characteristic peaks of the absorption power spectra could reach to 3–5 dB.     

Optimally gain-flattened and dispersion-managed C + L-band hybrid amplifier using a single-wavelength pump laser

We propose a hybrid C-band erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) and L-band Raman fiber amplifier (RFA) using a single pump laser diode. The optimum pump sharing ratio to EDFA/RFA is 1/10 with a total pump power of 660 mW. Using multiple fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) with various reflectivities at different positions along the dispersion compensation fiber, the optimum dispersion compensation and power equalization for C + L-band channels are simultaneously realized. With an input power of −20 dBm/ch, the signal power variation among the channels is reduced from 9.8 dB to less than ±0.5 dB. Two pump reflectors are introduced to increase the pumping efficiency.     

Performance improvement by positioning DCF non-symmetrically in a periodic amplified re-circulating loop for long-haul optical soliton transmission link

In this paper, we have carried out simulative performance analysis by positioning the DCF non-symmetrically in a periodic amplified re-circulating loop for optical soliton transmission link over a long haul. The investigations indicate that relatively stable pulses can propagate in a mid-compensated optical soliton transmission over a long-haul dispersion-managed soliton regime in a fiber link with loss and periodic amplification by keeping the average dispersion small but non-zero. Here non-zero anomalous fiber dispersion equal to 6 ps/nm is maintained by inserting DCF in the beginning, middle and end of the fiber loop. Here it is demonstrated that solitons can propagate even when β₂ varies along the fiber length up to transmission distance of 18,000 km.