Cladding-Pumped Er/Yb-Co-Doped Fiber Amplifier for Multi-Channel Operation

Abstract

Cladding-pumped erbium (Er3+)/ytterbium (Yb3+)-co-doped fiber amplifiers are more advantageous at high output powers. However, this amplification technique also has potential in telecom-related applications. These types of amplifiers have complex properties, especially when considering gain profile and a pump conversion efficiency. Such metrics depend on the doped fiber profile, absorption/emission spectra, and the input signal power. In this context, we design, build and characterize an inhouse prototype of cladding-pumped Er3+/Yb3+-co-doped fiber amplifier (EYDFA). Our goal is to identify the EYDFA configuration (a co-doped fiber length, pump power, input signal power) suitable for signal amplification in a multichannel fiber-optic transmission system with a dense wavelength allocation across the C-band (1530–1565 nm). Our approach involves experimentally determining the Er3+/Yb3+-co-doped fiber’s parameters to be used in a simulation setup to decide on an initial EYDFA configuration before moving to a laboratory setup. An experimental EYDFA prototype is tested under different conditions using a 48-channel dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM, 100 GHz) system to evaluate the absolute gain and gain uniformity. The obtained results allow the cladding pump amplifier’s suitability for wideband signal amplification to be assessed. The developed prototype provides >21 dB of gain with a 12 dB ripple within 1534–1565 nm. Furthermore, we show that the gain profile can be partially flattened out by using longer EYDF spans. This enhances signal amplification in the upper C-band in exchange for a weaker amplification in the lower C-band, which can be marginally improved with higher pump powers.

Domestic and international development trends of broadband fiber amplifier

“…In today's information society, people's demand for communication capacity is increasing day by day, and driven by user demand and social demand, modern fiber optic communication is constantly pursuing for high speed, big capacity and long distance, and the development of broadband fiber amplifiers to broaden the bandwidth is an effective way to expand the capacity of optical communication. In the dense optical wave multiplexing (DWDM) system, the development of broadband fiber amplifiers focus on erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA, Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifier) [1] and fiber Raman amplifier (FRA, Fiber Raman Amplifier), in recent years, there has been a continuous emergence of new fiber amplifiers, such as bismuth-doped fiber amplifier [2], ytterbium-erbium co-doped fiber amplifier [3], etc., are emerging in recent years.…”

Development of a Hybrid Broadband Amplifier for FOTS Solutions

“…The primary driver of the amplification process is the concentration of rare earth elements, which is very important for the combination of such amplifiers. The core of the fiber used in this solution is doped with erbium and ytterbium, and this was determined as an atomic percentage of 0.06 % and 1.21 %, respectively [43]. It is a Yb 3+ to Er 3+ ratio of 20.17, which shows that Yb 3+ plays the leading role in absorbing the pumping light and transferring this energy to the Er 3+ ions.…”