Bidirectional-pumped L-band erbium-doped fiber amplifier with pump distribution technique

A dual-stage erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) having a flat gain wavelength response throughout L-band transmission window is presented. By applying pump power distribution technique, the pump power is distributed to two different stages with different length of EDF depending on the coupling ratio. By controlling these two parameters, gain of 19.1 dB with small gain variation of less than 0.5 dB and a noise figure of less than 10.5 dB are achieved in this architecture using bidirectional pumping. However, when another 3 dB power coupler is added to split the pump power equally at the second stage in bidirectional, a better noise figure of less than 7.5 dB was obtained. Comparison with a conventional single-stage optical amplifier was made in order to validate the performances of this dual-stage EDFA.