Simple and efficient L-band erbium-doped fiber amplifiers for WDM networks

The performance of L-band erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) of a simple structure with a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) was investigated, The injected C-band ASE by the FBG offers low-cost amplification and greatly improves the efficiency of the EDFA. There are 9 and 4 dB improvements with the FBG at 1587 nm, at low and high input, respectively. The flat gain of 18 dB, up to a total input of -5 dBm at 150 mW of 980 nm pump, is obtained over 30 nm with less than 0.5 dB gain variations without any gain equalizer. The proposed EDFA provides a cost-effective solution for wavelength division multiplexing systems. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.