AN EFFICIENT L-BAND ERBIUM-DOPED FIBER AMPLIFIER WITH ZIRCONIA-YTTRIA-ALUMINUM CO-DOPED SILICA FIBER

For the first time, double-pass erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) is demonstrated to provide L-band amplification using only a single gain medium of Zirconia-Yttria-Aluminum erbium Co-Doped Fiber (Zr-EDF). The gain medium of the proposed amplifier combines both of Zr and Al ions to obtains a high erbium ion concentration of 2800 ppm (parts per million) and absorption loss of 14.5 dB/m at 980 nm. At high input power of -10 dBm, a flat gain of 15.9 dB is achieved for the optimum length of 4 m with gain fluctuation of less than 1.5 dB within a wide-band wavelength region from 1550 to 1600 nm. The corresponding noise figure is maintained below 12 dB within the flat-gain region. In addition, a flat gain of 9.9 dB with gain fluctuation of less than 1 dB is also obtained for Zr-EDF long of 6 m within L-band region. Compared with the conventional silica based erbium-doped fiber amplifier (Si-EDFA), It was found that the proposed EDFA, which uses a shorter length of gain medium, can achieve slightly higher gain values and broader bandwidth, as well as a lower noise figure.