Intensity based erbium distribution for erbium doped fiber amplifiers

A method to calculate an optimum Erbium distribution to enhance the gain efficiency in EDFA is proposed. This method calculates Erbium distribution based on optical pump envelop, pump power and optical properties of Erbium ion. The intensity-based Erbium distribution is obtained for single-mode fiber and dispersion-shifted fiber types EDFA for pump power from 10 to 40 mW. All of the profiles have a Gaussian-like shape. For single-mode fiber type EDFA, high gain enhancement is obtained in a relatively short optimal length of fiber. Optimal length of EDFA, using intensity-based Erbium distribution, is increased by a factor of 1.5–3 with respect to the one using stepwise. This optimal length increasing factor is considerably smaller than that of the EDFA, using the one-fourth confinement Erbium profile.     

Energy transfer and upconversion in erbium–ytterbium-doped fluoride phosphate glasses

The energy-transfer rate coefficient from ytterbium to erbium (K) and upconversion rate coefficient for erbium (C) are determined by analysis of erbium fluorescence decay under different pumping conditions. A simple rate-equation model was used to describe the fluorescence dynamics. Numerical analysis of the model delivered K and C as fit parameters to the experimental curves. Values of K ranging from 0.75–1.42×10^-16 cm³/s and C from 0.8–1.7×10^-18 cm³/s were found. The results obtained are of the same magnitude as results for phosphate glasses reported in the literature. Further analysis showed that high erbium concentrations (2×10²⁰ cm^-3) need a much higher pump intensity to reach threshold due to increased losses caused by upconversion. Received: 14 January 2002 / Published online: 7 February 2002     

Study of distributed erbium doped fiber amplifier

Basing on analyzing distributed erbium-doped fiber amplifier(d-EDFA) of evenly doped density along propagating direction, we put forward two sort d-EDFAs of slowly and linearly variously doped density along propagating direction: one-variation and two-variation d-EDFA. By using convective equations, we study the propagating properties of signal and noise in three sort d-EDFAs. Noise figure, signal-noise ratio, necessary pump and optimal pump period also are studied, under both transparent transmission and optimal doped density.     

Side-polished fiber based gain-flattening filter for erbium doped fiber amplifiers

A simple and accurate novel normal mode analysis has been developed to take into account the effect of the non-uniform depth of polishing in the study of the transmission characteristics of optical waveguide devices based on loading of a side-polished fiber half-coupler with a multimode planar waveguide. We apply the same to design and fabricate a gain-flattening filter suitable for fiber amplifiers. The wavelength dependent filtering action of the overall device could demonstrate flattening of an EDFA gain spectrum within ±0.7 dB over a bandwidth of 30 nm in the C-band. Results obtained by the present analysis agree very well with our experimental results. This present analysis should be very useful in the accurate design and analysis of any SPF-MMOW device/component including side-polished fiber based sensors.     

Spectral luminescence properties of transparent lead fluoride nanoglassceramics doped with erbium ions

Transparent nanoglassceramics has been synthesized based on lead fluoride silicate glass doped with erbium ions. It is shown that heat treatment of lead fluoride silicate glass leads to the formation of nanoscale (16–40 nm) crystalline phase of lead fluoride. X-ray diffraction analysis and measurement of spectral luminescence properties have revealed that the erbium ions enter the crystalline phase of lead fluoride.     

Optical-EPR double resonance studies of erbium doped lithium yttrium fluoride

Fluorescence modulation has been used to optically detect excited state paramagnetic resonance of Er³⁺in LiYF₄. Ground state EPR has been similarly detected both through resonant reabsorption of the fluorescence and memory effects active over the optical absorption—emission cycle.     

Multi-wavelength Q-switched erbium doped fiber laser with a short carbon nanotube based saturable absorber

We demonstrate an all-fiber passively multi-wavelength Q-switched Erbium doped fiber laser (EDFL) based on a short Carbon Nanotube based saturable absorber. With the saturable absorber connected in a longer standing wave based fiber laser cavity, stable single, dual, and multiple wavelength Q-switched low threshold EDFL are achieved. Experimental results show that the output pulse of the filtered single wavelength has the same repetition rate as that of the multi-wavelength output while its average output power is lower than that of the multi-wavelength output.     

Tunable erbium doped fiber ring laser using fiber Bragg grating-assisted add-drop filter

A stable and low costless tunable erbium doped fiber ring laser using fiber Bragg grating-assisted add-drop filter is proposed and demonstrated. A stable laser output is obtained with a 4 nm tuning range. The power fluctuation, full-width at half maximum and SMSR are measured to be less than 0.50 dB, smaller than 0.015 nm and better than 55 dB in this tuning range.     

Performance of Brillouin optical time domain reflectometer with erbium doped fiber amplifier

The performance of Brillouin optical time domain reflectometry (BOTDR) affected by different pump power and direction of erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) is experimentally demonstrated. A temperature error of 0.5 °C and spatial resolution of 10 m is obtained over 80 km sensing fiber with EDFA. The temperature resolution and dynamic range of BOTDR with backward pumped EDFA is better than forward pumped EDFA. Within the range of pump power, the resolution of BOTDR can be improved by increasing pump power.     

Spectral luminescence and information characteristics of transparent lead fluoride nano-glass-ceramics doped with erbium ions

Spectral luminescence properties of synthesized transparent nano-glass-ceramics doped with erbium ions are studied. It is shown that, as a result of the secondary heat treatment of nano-glass-ceramics, the width of the luminescence spectrum at half maximum increases more than by 15 nm. Luminescence life-time dependences of erbium ions in studied samples are measured, their absorption cross-sections are determined, and their emission cross-sections are calculated by the McCumber method. Spectral and ultimate information characteristics of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers based on synthesized nano-glass-ceramics are numerically simulated. It is shown that, in the unsaturated gain regime, a substantial ripple of the absorption and emission cross-section spectra and shorter lifetime of the metastable level of the erbium ion reduce the pumping radiation power that is required for obtaining the given peak gain, narrow the gain spectra, and lower the transmission capacity of devices based on nano-glass-ceramics compared to the initial glass. Conversely, fiber amplifiers based on calcium fluoride glass-ceramics, for which the lifetime of the metastable level increases with increasing annealing temperature, have an advantage in the transmission capacity over devices based on the primary glass.     

Optimization of core size in erbium doped holey fiber amplifiers

Holey fibers (HFs) can be used as amplifier in optical communication systems. These new fiber structures have flexibility to change the fiber parameters such as refractive index of guided mode, air filling factor (AFF), V number, group velocity dispersion (GVD) and numerical aperture, only by the change of the hole size and air-hole spacing. In this paper we will use improved fully vectorial effective index method (IFEIM) to analyze the erbium doped holey fiber amplifier (EDHFA) with hexagonal unit cell. The range that core size can change in any air-hole spacing will determine and the growth of core size in the amplifier character such as maximum gain and optimum length will study. By determination of single mode region the effect of pump power and dopant concentration growth, on the amplifier parameter will define.     

Evaluation of quenching effects on silica-based erbium doped fiber micro-ring lasers

While micro-ring lasers is a step forward for the miniaturization of fiber lasers, up-conversion quenching due to ion energy transfer may limit the device size and deteriorate system performance. The effect of Er³⁺ concentration quenching on the characteristics of silica-based Er-doped fiber (EDF) micro-ring laser was investigated. In particular, the dependence on Er³⁺ concentration and laser size of threshold pump power and quantum efficiency is discussed. To achieve high laser efficiency, it was found that ring diameter has to be ∼150 μm with ∼5 wt.% erbium concentration. The threshold value is increased by a factor of 340, for such laser characteristics compared with threshold power when up-conversion is not considered. Moreover, we show that detrimental effect due to up-conversion quenching can be reduced by careful micro-ring laser design.     

Analysis of erbium doped holey fiber using fundamental space filling mode

Erbium-doped holey fiber with hexagonal lattice was modeled by using effective index method. In order to calculate the equivalent step index of the periodic structure of the cladding holey optical fiber, all-vectorial fundamental space filling mode approach was utilized. By using EH11 mode, we have numerically solved the rate equations of a three-level pumping scheme for a fiber laser. The obtained results have shown a good agreement with the other experimental results, recently. The results have predicted amplifiers with gain efficiencies as high as 10 dB/mW.     

Stable single longitudinal mode fiber ring laser based on polarization maintaining erbium doped fiber

A stable single longitudinal mode (SLM) fiber ring laser that incorporates polarization maintaining erbium doped fiber (PM EDF) acting as gain medium and saturable absorber is proposed and demonstrated. Both theoretical deviation and experimental result prove that optical intensity is time invariant when the laser operates in single longitudinal mode, the SLM operation can be approximately verified by optical intensity analysis, which is practical to analyze longitudinal mode in the application of engineering. The linewidth of the fiber ring laser is measured by the delayed self-heterodyne interferometery, and an acousto-optic frequency shifter is employed to shift the lasing frequency and eliminate zero frequency interfere. The SLM operation is verified by the scanning Fabry–Perot interferometer, whereas the lasing frequency drift slowly during a period of 2 h, PM EDF is proved to be effective on suppressing mode hopping and selecting longitudinal mode.     

Inherently gain flattened S-band erbium doped fiber amplifier based on dual core resonant leaky fiber

A co-axial dual core resonant leaky optical fiber (DCRLF) is designed for inherent gain equalization of S-band erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA). Resonance tail of leakage loss of the fiber into the S-band region is utilized to flatten the gain. We have numerically studied the effect of various design parameters and their fabrication tolerances on gain flattening. We show 23.5 dB flat gain with ± 0.9 dB ripple over 30 nm bandwidth (1490–1520 nm) using 120 mW pump. The study should be useful in designing optical fiber amplifiers for optical communication system employing wavelength division multiplexing.     

Timing jitter reduction of optical pulse source using unpumped erbium doped fiber

A technique to enhance the stability of optical pulse source has been proposed that employs a specific length of unpumped erbium doped fiber. Two types of pulse sources are used one after the other, one of them is a 10 GHz mode locked laser and the other is a gain switched DFB laser diode with the repetition rate of 2 GHz. A 3-m erbium doped fiber is consolidated outside the cavity of the pulse sources so as to form strong standing waves, resulting into enhanced spatial hole burning effect. As a result, the phase noise of the pulse source is suppressed, whereas the possible undesired changes in the attributes of the pulse source are also nullified because we have designed the setup outside the cavity of the pulse source. Consequently, the timing jitter of the pulse source is reduced significantly.     

Construction and characterization of interferometric fiber optic gyroscope (IFOG) with erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA)

Gyroscopes, which sense changes on absolute angular rate and are classified into Interferometric Fiber Optic Gyroscopes (IFOG), Ring Laser Gyroscopes (RLG) and Micro- Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) Gyroscopes, are critical components of the navigation systems together with accelerometers. Being dominant over other types of gyroscopes in terms of performance and cost, IFOGs have widely been used in metrology and in particular defense/aerospace industry. This paper covers the design details of both optical and electronic components of IFOG prototype, the sensing mechanism of which is based on Sagnac Phase Shift, constructed in Optics Laboratory of National Metrology Institute of TURKEY as absolute angular rate sensor. In the prototype IFOG, open-loop configuration was applied, a single mode telecommunication optical fiber and an EDFA pumped by DFB laser emitting at 1549.0 nm were used as sensing coil and broadband source, respectively. The voltage data carrying Sagnac Phase Shift was extracted by a phase tracking circuit consisting of an active RC band pass filter, an amplifier with adjustable gain and an AD630 balanced modulator chip which was operated as lock-in. For the prototype IFOG, peak to peak noise of 8 (°/h) and bias stability of 1.57 (°/h) were attained respectively. Moreover the scale factor of 13.83 (°/h)/mV was derived with deviation of 0.73%.     

Gain-flattened S-band depressed cladding erbium doped fiber amplifier with a flat bandwidth of 12 nm using a Tunable Mach-Zehnder Filter

S-band amplification is an important area of optical communications research, focusing on meeting the ever-increasing demands for traffic bandwidth as the C- and L-bands approaches to their limits. In this paper a novel method of providing an S-band optical amplifier with a flat gain-bandwidth is proposed. The proposed method utilizes a Depressed Cladding Erbium Doped Fibre together with a Tunable Mach-Zehnder Filter as to generate a flat amplification bandwidth of 12 nm stretching from 1492 to 1504 nm. The average gain value is approximately 24.21 dB, with a peak to peak fluctuation of 0.83 dB and a noise figure ranges from 7.13 to 10.94 dB for input signals of 1484 to 1510 nm.     

Highly efficient and high output power of erbium doped fiber laser in a linear cavity configuration

A simple Erbium Doped Fiber Laser (EDFL) in linear cavity configuration is reported. The cavity design is based on an FBG as a back reflector, and a loop back optical circulator with an output coupler as the front reflector. Different coupling ratios of the coupler are tested and 50: 50 provides the highest coupling output power of 22.06 dBm (160.7 mW). The pump power conversion efficiency is about 95% when pumping with two pump lasers at 1460 and 1490 nm with combined pumping power of 545 mW. The laser output has a measured linewidth of 0.0179 nm.