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.