Gain-Flattened Thulium Doped Fiber Amplifier Incorporating Dual-Stage Pumping

Abstract

A high power thulium doped fiber amplifier (TDFA) with a flat gain bandwidth over 80 nm is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. An output power over 0.67 W and an operation wavelength range from 1960 to 2040 nm have been achieved by employing a dual-stage configuration. The maximum saturated gain is 29 dB and noise figure is lower than 4 dB.