Suppression of Output Power and NF Excursions in Cascades of Highly Inverted EDFAs with Packet-Switched Traffic

Significant output power excursions in cascades of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) can cause serious problems in wavelength division multilexing (WDM) packet-switched burst-mode networks. Signal power excursions more serious than those induced by channel addition/removal in circuit switched networks can arise when data on the WDM channels is highly variable in nature. Self-similar traffic can be subject to large variation in EDFA gain. In order to prevent unacceptable error bursts, due, for example, to channel power becoming too low to preserve adequate eye opening or exceeding thresholds for optical nonlinearities, the channel power should be maintained constant. In this letter, it is shown that the sizable power and noise figure swings arising in a cascade of EDFAs with WDM burst-mode packet-switched networks with self-similar traffic can be effectively suppressed when highly inverted amplifiers are employed. The analysis is based on the application of a numerical model, which solves the transcendental equation for length averaged metastable level population of an EDFA.     

Effect of channel adding/dropping on EDFA transients

In this paper, we investigate the technique to control the transients by means of channel adding/dropping in cascades of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) in optical communication system. We demonstrate the transient reduction via simulation by employing the all-optical gain clamping (AOGC) in a chain of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers. We show that as EDFAs are gradually added in the optical link, the transients are also reduced significantly. It is observed that when we use cascade of six EDFAs and note the transient reduction, it is not as much as in case of chain of ten EDFAs in which the transients are greatly suppressed. Using the same model we further compare the transient response of Compact EDFAs and Transient EDFAs. It is observed that suppression of transients is much in Compact EDFAs than Transient EDFAs.     

Suppression of Output Power and NF Excursions in Cascades of Highly Inverted EDFAs with Packet-Switched Traffic

Significant output power excursions in cascades of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) can cause serious problems in wavelength division multilexing (WDM) packet-switched burst-mode networks. Signal power excursions more serious than those induced by channel addition/removal in circuit switched networks can arise when data on the WDM channels is highly variable in nature. Self-similar traffic can be subject to large variation in EDFA gain. In order to prevent unacceptable error bursts, due, for example, to channel power becoming too low to preserve adequate eye opening or exceeding thresholds for optical nonlinearities, the channel power should be maintained constant. In this letter, it is shown that the sizable power and noise figure swings arising in a cascade of EDFAs with WDM burst-mode packet-switched networks with self-similar traffic can be effectively suppressed when highly inverted amplifiers are employed. The analysis is based on the application of a numerical model, which solves the transcendental equation for length averaged metastable level population of an EDFA.     

Characterization of lasing-oscillation direction in optical gain-clamped erbium-doped fiber amplifiers

In this paper, the effect of ring-laser propagating direction in gain-clamped erbium-doped fiber amplifiers is investigated. The optical amplifier architecture under study is based on ring-laser cavity. The strongest gain-clamping effect is obtained for bi-traveling ring-laser in the optical amplifier. On the other hand, the low-noise figure operation can be achieved by allowing the ring-laser to co-travel with the signal propagation.     

Performance Degradation due to Cascaded Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier Power Transients in Wavelength Routed Optical Networking

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Cavity-enhanced spectroscopy in fiber cavities

We discuss the relative merits of passive and active fiber cavities for ring-down. Ring-down times of approximately 2 micros were recently demonstrated in passive cavities, but operation is restricted to weak evanescent wave interaction. We report on active cavities with amplifiers used for loss compensation, permitting the use of open-path micro-optic cells. Ring-down times of tens of microseconds can readily be achieved and extended to several hundred microseconds in gain-clamped cavities, but relaxation oscillations and system drift impose limits on accuracy and repeatability. A cavity enhancement of 2 orders of magnitude is realistically possible, and sensitivity may be further enhanced if ring-down is combined with established spectroscopic methods.     

Gain Stabilization in All-Optical Gain-Clamped Cascade of Praseodymium-Doped Fluoride Fiber Amplifiers

The authors present theoretical results of an analysis of an all-optical gain-clamped (AOGC) praseodymium-doped fluoride fiber amplifier (PDFFA) for protecting surviving channels in an amplified wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) network with six cascaded PDFFAs. The theoretical analysis is based on application of a large-signal numerical model that takes into account propagation of pump, signal, and downstream and upstream amplified spontaneous emission and includes time variation effects in a four-level laser system. It is shown that power excursions caused in an eight-channel WDM network by loss addition of six channels could be lower than 1 dB and free of relaxation oscillations if the AOGC PDFFA is strongly inverted and the total loss of the ring resonator is appropriately set.     

Effect of stimulated Brillouin scattering on the gain saturation of distributed fiber Raman amplifier and its suppression by phase modulation

For distributed fiber Raman amplifiers(DFRAs), stimulated Brillouin scattering(SBS) can deplete the pump once occurring and consequently generate gain saturation. On the basis of such a theory, theoretical gain saturation powers in DFRAs with various pump schemes are obtained by calculating SBS thresholds in them, and the experimental results show that they are in excellent agreement with the calculation results. The saturation power of the DFRA with a 300 m W forward pump is as low as 0 d Bm, which needs to be enhanced by phase modulation, and the effect is quantitatively studied. A simple model taking both modulation frequency and index into consideration is presented by introducing a correction factor to evaluate the effect of phase modulation on the enhancement of saturation power. Experimentally, it is shown that such a correction factor decreases as the modulation frequency increases and approaches zero when the modulation frequency becomes high enough. In particular, a phase modulation with a modulation frequency of 100 MHz and a modulation index of 1.380 can enhance the saturation power by 4.44 d B, and the correction factor is 0.25 d B, in which the modulation frequency is high enough. Additionally, the factor is 1.767 d B for the modulation frequency of 25 MHz. On this basis,phase modulations with various indexes and a fixed frequency of 25 MHz are adopted to verify the modified model, and the results are positive. To obtain the highest gain saturation power, the model is referable. The research results provide a guide for the design of practical DFRAs.     

Gain and Noise figure performance of erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) and Compact EDFAs

In this paper, we compare the Gain and Noise figure characteristics of physical EDFAs and Compact EDFAs in an optical system consisting of cascade of both the amplifiers. We demonstrate the gain, noise figure variations of a forward pumped EDFA and Compact EDFAs as functions of Er³⁺ fiber length, injected pump power and up-conversion co-efficient. It is observed that the gain becomes constant when the length of both the amplifiers reaches above 20 m. The comparison shows that the higher gain with flatter output is obtained in case of Compact EDFAs than Physical EDFAs in a system consisting of chain of both the amplifiers. It is further investigated that the agreement between the Compact and Physical EDFA models is good up to 10 m with the no up-conversion co-efficient. Also, the noise figure obtained in case of Physical EDFA is higher than Compact EDFAs when same amplifier length is more than 20 m and then becomes constant for both the amplifiers.     

Dynamic Gain-Clamped Amplifier with Backward-Injection of a Fabry-Perot Laser

We have been experimentally demonstrated an active control technique of dynamic gain-clamped spectra for the erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA's) by a backward-injected Fabry-Perot (F-P) laser into this EDFA. In addition, employing a short length erbium-doped fiber (EDF) that not cause any gain saturation for preamplification in front of this amplifier module, it can reduce the noise figure degradation and simultaneously achieve gain variation from 11.1 dB to 0.5 dB for 10 dB input power level change.     

Time-domain simulation of channel crosstalk and inter-modulation distortion in gain-clamped semiconductor optical amplifiers

A time-domain model is implemented for gain-clamped semiconductor optical amplifiers (GC-SOAs) based on a combination of the separated traveling-wave equations and effective Bloch equations. The key feature of this model lies in its capability of handling the lasing-signal, signal-signal, and signal-noise interactions over a broad wavelength band. Therefore, various nonlinear phenomena such as the cross-gain saturation (XGS) and nondegenerate four-wave mixing (ND-FWM) can readily be captured. After being implemented and validated, this model is applied to the simulation of GC-SOA dynamic behaviors such as the channel crosstalk and intermodulation distortion (IMD). Simulation results show that the third-order IMD can be effectively suppressed by a gain-clamping lasing mode in GC-SOAs in comparison with that in conventional SOAs. The channel crosstalk can also be suppressed to some extent in GC-SOAs, but not as effectively. Other than a homogeneous reduction, the gain-clamping in GC-SOAs does not change the dependence of the channel crosstalk and IMD on the input signal power and channel spacing. It is also shown that the channel crosstalk, unlike the IMD, cannot be efficiently reduced by enlarging the channel spacing even in GC-SOAs.     

The L-band EDFA of high clamped gain and low noise figure implemented using fiber Bragg grating and double-pass method

The L-band erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) of low noise figure and high clamped-gain using gain-clamped and double-pass configuration is presented in this paper. A total of five different configurations of EDFAs by reflection scheme with single forward pumping schemes are examined and compared here. Among these configurations, we first find the configuration of 1480-nm pumped L-band EDFA with optimum gain and noise figure value. To further minimize the gain variation, a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) with 1615-nm center wavelength and 1-nm bandwidth is determined and added in double-pass L-band EDFA. The gain variation and maximum noise figure of EDFA while channel dropping is investigated. As the number of channel dropping from 32 to 4, the L-band type-A EDFA keep the variation of gain within 2.9 dB and the maximum noise figure below 5 dB with each channel’s input power of −23 dBm.     

Performance Degradation due to Cascaded Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifier Power Transients in Wavelength Routed Optical Networking

We have investigated the fast power transient effect of the cascaded erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA) in wavelength routed optical networks. The bit error ratio (BER) degradation of surviving channel was measured at the different adding/dropping frequencies of the disturbed channels. The result show that, for low channel-adding/dropping frequency closed to EDFA transient rate, the transmission performances of the surviving channels are impaired severely.     

Enhanced optical gain clamping for upstream packet based traffic on hybrid WDM/TDM-PON using fiber Bragg grating

In this paper, we propose a method to mitigate the temporal power transients arising from Erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) on packeted/bursty scenario. The technique, applicable on hybrid WDM/TDM-PON for extended reach, is based on a low power clamping provided by a distributed feedback (DFB) laser and a fiber Bragg grating (FBG). An improvement in the data signal Q factor was achieved keeping the clamping control signal with a low power, accompanied by a maximum reduction in the gain excursion of 1.12 dB.     

Gain-clamped S-band discrete Raman amplifier

We demonstrate the advantages of an optically gain-clamped S-band discrete Raman amplifier: low gain variation over a large input dynamic range, effective suppression of Raman transients, and amplifier instability in the strong-pump-weak-signal configuration. We further investigate experimentally the operating conditions necessary for effective gain clamping and demonstrate gain flattening over 30 nm of bandwidth. Thus a gain-clamped discrete Raman amplifier shows promise for practical deployment.     

Gain Characterization of All-Optical Gain-Clamped PDFFA for WDM Networks Using the Feedback Theory

Using feedback theory, we analyze the gain of an all-optical gain-clamped praseodymium-doped fluoride fiber amplifier (AOGC PDFFA) for eight-channel multiwavelength operation. We demonstrate by numerical simulation that gain stabilization is achieved when the open-loop gain is higher than the feedback path attenuation. If this condition is fulfilled, the gain stabilizes to a value equal to the feedback path attenuation and is not influenced by the pump power, input signal power, number of channels, doped fiber length, or any other doped fiber parameter. In our setup the AOGC PDFFA noise figure is 0.12 dB lower than the open-loop PDFFA noise figure.     

Numerical comparison on the characteristics between backward and bi-directionally pumped DFRAs in hybrid Raman/EDFAs

The characteristics of broadband backward and bi-directionally pumped distributed fiber Raman amplifiers (DFRAs) in hybrid Raman/erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (HFAs) configuration are compared numerically based on noise-nonlinear figure (NNF) when standard single mode fiber (SMF) and non-zero dispersionshifted fiber (NZDSF) are considered. It is found that achievable NNF in optimized bi-directionally pumped HFAs is about 1.2 dB (or 1.7 dB) higher than that in backward pumped HFAs for SMF (or NZDSF), and better characteristics can be achieved by using NZDSF rather than SMF for long haul transmission.     

利用光纤光栅对实现双波长增益控制掺铒光纤放大器特性的实验研究

控制激光的弛豫振荡和空间烧孔现象的存在 ,对全光增益控制掺铒光纤放大器 (EDFA)的性能产生劣化影响。采用一种新颖简单的利用两对光纤光栅对形成谐振腔结构 ,实现双波长增益控制掺铒光纤放大器。由两个不同波长的激光共同承担增益控制的任务 ,降低了控制激光引起的空间烧孔现象和瞬态输出变化。在动态工作条件下 ,双波长激光增益控制掺铒光纤放大器显示出优越的特性 ,适用范围扩展为普通单波长增益控制掺铒光纤放大器的两倍 ,能够适应 0～ 43kHz的上下载频率。     

L-band all-optical gain-clamped EDFA by utilizing C-band backward ASE

By using an optical circulator and C/L-band wavelength division multiplexer to recycle the C-band backward ASE, an L-band gain-clamped erbium-doped fiber amplifier is presented. We have experimentally studied the static gain clamping property of this amplifier. As the ASE feedback attenuation is set to 0, the gain at 1585 nm can be clamped at 18.84 ± 0.26 dB within dynamic range of 25 dB and the critical power reaches about −15.09 dBm. The gain variation and saturated output power at 1585 nm for 0 dB attenuation are 1 dB lower and 2.17 dB higher than those for 30 dB attenuation, which indicates that the L-band EDFA gain can be effectively clamped via the ASE injection technique.     

A gain-clamped S-band erbium-doped fiber amplifier using fiber Bragg grating

We propose and investigate experimentally a gain-clamped S-band erbium-doped fiber amplifier module, employing a fiber Bragg grating to serve as a reflected element to lase a saturated tone injected into the module, by forward optical feedback method. In addition, different injected powers of the saturated tone are used to realize the performances of gain and noise figure for the proposed amplifier over the effectively wavelength range of 1478-1520 nm.