Chapter 5

OPTICAL AMPLIFIERS

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Fig. 5.0.1. Illustration of a point-to-point optical transmission system and the functions of optical amplifiers. Tx: transmitter and
Rx: receiver.

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Fig. 5.0.2. (A) and (B) Packaged fiber amplifiers as a desktop equipment and as a module. (C) SOA in a butterfly package.

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Fig. 5.1.2. Illustration of optical amplifier with a one-dimensional gain medium.

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Fig. 5.1.3. Optical gain (A) and output optical power (B) as the function of the input power calculated with Eq. (5.1.10). G0=30dB
and Psat=3dBm.

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Fig. 5.2.1. Illustration of optical (A) and electrical (B) power spectral densities (PSD) and signal-ASE beat noise
generation. fopt and fele represent optical and electrical frequencies, respectively.

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Fig. 5.2.2. Illustration of optical (A) and electrical (B) power spectral densities (PSD) and ASE-ASE beat noise
generation. fopt and fele represent optical and electrical frequencies, respectively.

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Fig. 5.2.3. Illustration of optical (A) and electrical (B) power spectral densities in the process of ASE-ASE beat noise generation.

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Fig. 5.2.4. Measurement of optical amplifier noise figure. PD: photodetector.

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Fig. 5.3.1. Illustration of SOA with cavity length L, single-pass optical gain Gs, facet reflectivity R, and propagation constant β. The
colinear optical beam is purposely displaced after each reflection for better display.

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Fig. 5.3.2. SOA power transfer functions calculated with peak gain Gs(f0)=30-dB peak gain, cavity length L=300μm, refractive index n=3.5,
and material gain bandwidth Δf=2.5THz (equivalent to 20nm in the 1550nm wavelength window). The dashed lines show the power
transfer function with R=0, and the thin solid lines show the power transfer functions with R=5×10−5 (A), 10−4 (B), and 5×10−4 (C).

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Fig. 5.3.3. SOA power transfer function calculated with peak gain Gs(f0)=30dB, R=0 (dashed line) and R=0.172×10−3 so that the ripple
amplitude is exactly 3dB.

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Fig. 5.3.4. Illustration of short pulse response of optical gain and carrier population of an SOA: (A) short optical pulse, (B) optical gain of
the SOA, and (C) carrier population.

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Fig. 5.3.5. All-optical wavelength conversion using cross-gain saturation effect of SOA: (A) system configuration and (B) illustration of
principle.

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Fig. 5.3.6. Gain suppression ratio vs. input optical pulse energy in an SOA with 110-mW saturation optical power and 1ns carrier lifetime.

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Fig. 5.3.7. (A) SOA gain spectra without (solid circles) and with (open circles) gain saturation. (B) Gain suppression ratio and optical
phase change as the function of wavelength. (C) Linewidth enhancement factor alw as the function of wavelength (Hui et al., 1994).

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Fig. 5.3.8. All-optical switch using SOAs in a MZI configuration.

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Fig. 5.3.9. Normalized FWM signal power vs. frequency detune (Zhou et al., 1993).

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Fig. 5.3.10. Wavelength conversion using FWM in an SOA: (A) system configuration and (B) illustration of frequency relationship of FWM,
where fFWM=f2−2f1.

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Fig. 5.4.1. Configuration of an EDFA. EDF: erbium-doped fiber and WDM: wavelength-division multiplexing coupler.

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Fig. 5.4.2. Simplified energy band diagrams of erbium ions in silica: (A) three-level system and (B) two-level system.

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Fig. 5.4.3. Example of absorption and emission cross sections of Lucent HE980 erbium-doped fiber.

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Fig. 5.4.4. Maximum gain and absorption rates along the Lucent HE980 erbium-doped fiber.

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Fig. 5.4.5. Illustration of signal and ASE noise in an EDFA: Pfsig (λ,0) and Pfsig (λ,L) represent input and output optical signal in the forward
direction, Pfpump(λ,0) is the input pump, PfASE(λ) and PbASE (λ) represent forward and backward propagated ASE power spectral densities.

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Fig. 5.4.6. Numerically calculated performance of an EDFA with 100-mW forward pump, and six signal channels each with −20dBm
power at the EDFA and 4-nm channel spacing. The length of the EDF is L=25m. (A) Evolution of pump, ASE and signal powers along the
EDF, (B) optical PSD at EDFA output, (C) backward ASE PSD at the input side of EDF, and (D) upper level carrier density distribution
along the EDF.

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Fig. 5.4.7. Example of EDFA optical gain vs. wavelength at different input optical signal power levels.

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Fig. 5.4.8. Configuration of an EDFA with both a forward pump and a backward pump.

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Fig. 5.4.9. Performance of EDFA with bidirectional pumping and 25m EDF length. 100-mW pump power is used in each direction, and
there are six signal wavelength channels each with −20dBm input power. (A) Power evolution along the EDF for forward pump (squares),
backward pump (circles), total pump (stars), and optical signal channels (solid lines). (B) Output optical power spectral density.

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Fig. 5.4.10. Configuration of an EDFA with both automatic gain control. PDI: input photodiode and PDO: output photodiode.

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Fig. 5.4.11. Configuration of an EDFA with automatic power control.

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Fig. 5.4.12. EDFA gain flattening using (A) a passive filter and (B) a spatial light modulator.

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Fig. 5.4.13. Illustration of EDFA gain flattening using an optical filter.

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Fig. 5.5.1. Normalized signal optical power as the function of position along the 100km fiber with forward pump (A) and backward pump
(B) for different pump power levels. Parameters used are: Raman gain coefficient gR=5.8×10−14m/W, fiber effective core area Aeff=80μm2,
spontaneous scattering factor nsp=1.2, and fiber attenuation parameters αp=0.3dB/km and αs=0.25dB/km at the pump and the Stokes
wavelengths, respectively.

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Fig. 5.5.2. Noise figure as the function of the fiber length for forward pump (A) and backward pump (B) at different pump power levels.
Parameters used are the same as those in Fig. 5.5.1.

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Fig. 5.5.3. (A) A localized Raman amplifier with both forward and backward pumps, (B) a distributed Raman amplifier using transmission
fiber as the gain medium, and (C) a model separates a distributed Raman amplifier into a transmission fiber span and a localized
amplifier.

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Fig. 5.5.4. Effective noise figure NFeff vs. fiber length for forward pump (A) and backward pump (B) for different forward pump power
levels. All parameters are the same as those used to obtain Figs. 5.5.1 and 5.5.2.

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