Design of a wideband hybrid EDFA with a Fiber Raman Amplifier

Abstract

This paper presents a new design methodology for hybrid optical amplifiers operating simultaneously at C-and L-bands. Our configuration uses an Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier (EDFA) operating as a booster to obtain optical gain over the C-band and a Distributed Raman Amplifier (DRA) to provide gain over the L-band and control the gain ripple. The amplifier performance was computed in terms of on-off gain and ripple, Optical Signal to Noise Ratio (OSNR), and Noise Figure (NF). Our results show on-off gain from 17 dB with ripple up to 2 dB over a 65 nm bandwidth. The OSNR was higher than 35 dB with NF lower than 4 dB at 120 km. Fiber links from 90 km up to 180 km have been analyzed.