Gain control in double-pass L-band EDFA using a ring resonator and two-stage configuration

• Main Authors: Harun, Sulaiman Wadi, Md Samsuri, N., Poopalan, Prabakaran, Ahmad, Harith
• Format: Article
• Published: Elsevier 2004
• Subjects: Q Science (General); QC Physics; TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
• Online Access: http://eprints.um.edu.my/19645/; http://dx.doi.org/10.1078/0030-4026-00403

A gain-clamped double-pass long wavelength band erbium-doped fiber amplifier with high clamped-gain and low noise figure is demonstrated using a ring laser. The optical circulator is used at output end of the amplifier to retro-pass the test signal back into the system for enhanced gain. A length of forward pumped erbium-doped fiber is incorporated in front of the double-pass amplifier to achieve a low noise figure. The gain clamping is achieved by routing the backward amplified spontaneous emission into the feedback loop via optical circulator and C/L-band wavelength selective coupler to create a ring laser, which operates outside the L-band region. The gain is clamped at 10.6 dB for all input signal powers from -40 dBm to -4 dBm with a gain variation of less than ±0.4 dB, when the variable optical attenuator (VOA) is set at 0 dB. The clamped-gain level can be tuned from 10.6 to 21.6 dB by varying the VOA settings from 0 to 12 dB. The corresponding noise figure varies from 9.1 to 5.2 dB.