Investigation of all-optical gain clamped erbium-doped amplifier in the presence of variable burst traffic

Optical gain clamping is an all-optical method to control the gain of optical amplifiers. Recent results show that this technique is very robust and reduces impairments in amplification of typical traffic from optical burst (and packets) switching networks, where the traffic profile is very dynamic. Nevertheless, recent results have also shown that interplay between the characteristics of the optical gain clamping optical amplifier (OGC-OA) and particular traffic profiles may induce chaotic behavior caused by resonance in the OGC-OA lasing cavity. The aim of this investigation is to assess the impact of burst duration and inter-arrival time on these chaotic behavior cases. The investigation shows that the resonating frequency in which chaotic variation of the OGC-OA gain occurs is shifted - and even reduced - when the burst duration and inter-arrival time are changed. For this investigation, continuous trains of bursts were used, with fixed burst generation frequency throughout each case considered.