| Abstract: | We present a detailed comparison of dynamic space- and frequency-resolved and lumped erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) models. The space- and frequency-resolved models are based on an iterative solution of propagation equations for pump, multiple signals, and spectral components of forward and backward propagating amplified spontaneous powers and rate equations for pump, metastable, and ground energy level population densities of erbium ion. In contrast to space-resolved models, the lumped model solves a single ordinary differential equation for time evolution of the length-averaged metastable level population and is therefore substantially less computer time consuming. Both the space, and frequency-resolved and the lumped models give almost identical results when used for an analysis of surviving channel power excursions in concatenated EDFAs fed by multiwavelength signal and add/drop scenarios. For a statistical analysis of output power and signal-tonoise ratio fluctuations in EDFA cascades fed by burst-mode packet traffic, only lumped models can be used. |
