A Novel Gain-Clamped Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier for Wavelength Division Multiplexed Systems

Amplification of multiwavelength signals by an erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) is becoming critical, due to the proliferation of wavelength division multiplexed systems. However, when a standard EDFA is employed, the dissimilarities among the signals’ gain may prove unacceptable. Thus, a novel gain-clamped EDFA is proposed here to tackle the issue of gain tilt. The suitability of the configuration is then investigated through a numerical model, which is developed based on the standard EDFA and fiber laser models.