[OPTICAL REVIEW Vol. 7, No. 4 (2000) 294-296]

A Novel Gain-Clamped Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier for Wavelength Division Multiplexed Systems

Selvadurai SELVAKENNEDY, Prabakaran POOPALAN, Mohd Adzir MAHDI and Harith AHMAD

Telekom Malaysia Photonics Research Center, Department of Physics, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

(Received January 6, 2000; Accepted April 21, 2000)

Amplification of multiwavelength signals by an erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) is becoming critical, due to the proliferation of wavelength division multiplexed systems. However, when a standard EDFA is employed, the dissimilarities among the signals' gain may prove unacceptable. Thus, a novel gain-clamped EDFA is proposed here to tackle the issue of gain tilt. The suitability of the configuration is then investigated through a numerical model, which is developed based on the standard EDFA and fiber laser models.

Key words : gain control, erbium, modelling, optical feedback, optical fiber amplifiers

drskennedy@yahoo.com

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