Simulation approach for the design of radiation-hardened Erbium doped fiber amplifiers

Abstract

We investigate the sensitivity of fiber amplifiers to radiations and present an approach to design radiation hardened rare-earth doped fiber amplifiers. This paper includes testing experiments on comparing the radiation responses (200krad electron irradiation) of fiber amplifiers made with same lengths of different rare-earth doped fibers. Simulation tools can also be used to improve the tolerance of the fiber amplifiers by helping identifying the best performance for operation in harsh environment, simulation analysis figured that fiber length of the amplifier should be optimized to reduce the radiation-induced losses around the signal wavelength that strongly impact the fiber response. By using this particular approach, fiber amplifiers with little insensitivity to radiations could be manufactured in the future.