Gain Optimization of Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier Under Dual Pumping at 830 nm and 980 nm

Abstract

Various pumping configurations of optical amplifiers using Erbium Doped Fiber (EDF) are investigated at two pumps of 830 nm and 980 nm. The observation includes comparison between single pumping and dual pumping schemes, by varying fiber length and pump power, the gain and noise characteristics are examined. The determination of optimum length of EDF is ~10 m through investigating gain characteristic under single pumping scheme. With this length of EDF, the pump powers are selected as 100 mW of 830 nm and 150 mW of 980 nm wavelength. The observation indicates that 100 mW of 830 nm pump has gain of ~ 11 dB and noise Figure below -10 dB for both single pumping schemes. On the other hand, 150 mW pump power of 980 nm has a lower noise Figure at forward pumping scheme. Hence, for high and flat gain with tolerable noise effect, with an EDF length of 10 m, it is preferable that 150 mW of 980 nm pump laser is to set in the forward part and 100 mW of 830 nm pump is to set in the backward part in the dual pumping configuration.