Characterisation of Linear and Nonlinear Noise of a Dual-Stage Broadband Discrete Raman Amplifier

Abstract

The linear and nonlinear noise performance of a 70nm, dual-stage, ~20dB-gain discrete Raman amplifier is characterised experimentally using different second-stage fibres. An advantageous IDF-SMF configuration is identified with an improvement in the nonlinear performance by >1dBQ 2 compared with IDF-DCF configurations.