Space-division multiplexing (SDM) attracts attention to cladding-pumped optical amplifiers, but they suffer from a low pump power conversion efficiency. To address this issue, ytterbium (Yb3+) and erbium (Er3+) co-doping is considered as an effective approach. However, it changes the gain profile of Er3+-doped fiber amplifiers and induces the gain difference between optical wavelengths in the C-band, significantly limiting the effective band of the dense wavelength-division multiplexed (DWDM) system. This paper is devoted to a detailed study of a cladding-pumped Er3+/Yb3+ co-doped fiber amplifier (EYDFA) through numerical simulations aiming to identify a configuration, before assembling a similar EYDFA in our laboratory premises that ensures the desired performance. The simulation model is based on a commercial double cladding EYDF whose parameters are experimentally extracted and fed to the EYDFA setup for the system-level studies. We investigate the wavelength dependence of the amplifier’s characteristics (absolute gain, gain uniformity, noise figure) and bit error rate (BER) performance for several DWDM channels and their optical power. The obtained results show that a 7 m long EYDF and co-propagating pump direction is preferable for the EYDFA with a 3 W pump source at 975 nm and with the given gain medium characteristics for WDM applications. For instance, it ensures a gain of 19.7–28.3 dB and a noise figure of 3.7–4.2 dB when amplifying 40 DWDM channels with the input power of −20 dBm per channel. Besides, we study EYDFA gain bandwidth and the maximum output power when operating close to the saturation regime and perform a sensitivity analysis showing how the doped fiber’s absorption and emission cross-sections impact the amplification process through energy transfer from Yb3+ to Er3+. Finally, we quantify the power penalty introduced by the EYDFA; the results show that it is not higher than 0.1 dB when amplifying 40 × 10 Gbps non-return-to-zero on-off keying signals from −20 dBm/channel.

The exponential growth of data traffic related to the progress of newest technologies (e.g., 4K/8K live stream videos, virtual reality (VR) applications, etc.), new services, and a fast-growing number of end-users require higher bandwidth and increase of user bitrate, as a result pushing hard the telecommunication infrastructure for upgrading. Expected usage of more complex modulation formats in fiber optical link infrastructure for cellular network transmission and data center interconnections (DCI) are still affected with fundamental chromatic dispersion influence on the signal quality, which consequently increases bit error rate (BER). We experimentally demonstrate a real-time comparison of commercially used dispersion compensation techniques for 100 GHz spaced dense wavelength division multiplexed (DWDM) optical transmission system with a total transmission speed capacity of 160 Gbit/s.

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In this paper we present results from the study of optical signal amplification using Raman assisted fiber optical parametric amplifier with considerable benefits for S-band telecommunication systems where the use of widely used erbium-doped fiber amplifier is limited. We have created detailed models and performed computer simulations of combined Raman and fiber optical parametric amplification in a 16-channel 40 Gbps/channel wavelength division multiplexed transmission system. Achieved gain bandwidth, as well as transmission system parameters—signal-to-noise ratio and bit-error-ratio—were analyzed by comparing the Raman assisted fiber optical parametric amplifier to the single pump fiber optical parametric amplifier. Results show that the 3 dB gain bandwidth in the case of combined amplification is up to 0.2 THz wider with 1.9 dB difference between the lowest and highest gain.

The paper presents experimental study of the major erbium-doped fibre amplifier (EDFA) features such as gain at low signal and gain saturation by an application of different erbium-doped optical fibres (EDFs). The main objective of the research is to estimate how the performance of EDFA varies depending on the length of doped fibre, pumping configuration scheme, as well as excitation source power. It is shown that a high gain coefficient of 16–20 dB can be practically achieved.