EDFA

College of engineering
Electronic and Communication

Department
Erbium Dopped
Fiber Amplifier
Prepared by
Ali Hassan Mustafa Qays
2011
Overview
Introduction
Erbium doped fiber amplifiers
Amplifier applications
Issues: Gain flattening and Noise

Optical Amplifiers
An optical amplifier is a device which amplifies the optical
signal directly without ever changing it to electricity. The light itself is
amplified.
Reasons to use the optical amplifiers:
Reliability
Flexibility
Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM)
Low Cost
Traditional Optical Communication System
Loss compensation: Repeaters at every 20-50 km

Optically Amplified Systems
EDFA = Erbium Doped fibre Amplifier

Optical Amplification
Variety of optical amplifier types exist, including:

 Semiconductor optical amplifiers
 Optical fiber amplifiers (Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifiers)
 Distributed fiber amplifiers (Raman Amplifiers)
Optical fiber amplifiers are now the most common type
One of the most successful optical processing functions
Also used as a building block in DWDM systems

Basic EDF Amplifier Design
 Erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA)
most common
 Commercially available since the early 1990’s
 Works best in the range 1530 to 1565 nm
 Gain up to 30 dB (1000 photons out per photon in!)
Input Coupler Isolator
Output
1480 or 980 Erbium Doped Fiber

nm Pump
Laser
Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier
 A pump optical signal is added to an input signal by a WDM coupler
 Within a length of doped fiber part of the pump energy is transferred to
the input signal by stimulated emission
 For operation circa 1550 nm the fiber dopant is Erbium
 Pump wavelength is 980 nm or 1480 nm, pump power circa 50 mW
 Gains of 30-40 dB possible
Isolator Isolator
Input WDM Output

Erbium Doped
fiber
Pump Source
= Fusion Splice
Interior of an Erbium Doped
Fiber Amplifier
Pump
WDM Fiber
laser
coupler
Erbium
doped
fiber loop
Fiber
input/out
put
Operation of an EDFA
Power
Power level
Power level
interchange
between
pump and
980 nm 1550 nm data signals 980 nm 1550 nm
signal data signal signal data signal
Isolator Isolator
Input Output
WDM
Erbium Doped
fiber
= Fusion Splice Pump Source

Physics of an EDFA
Erbium Properties
 Erbium: rare element with phosphorescent properties
 Photons at 1480 or 980 nm activate
electrons into a metastable state
 Electrons falling back emit light in
the 1550 nm range
540
 Spontaneous emission
 Occurs randomly (time constant ~1 ms) 670
 Stimulated emission 820
 By electromagnetic wave 980
 Emitted wavelength & phase are Metastable
identical to incident one 1480
state
Ground state
Er+3 Energy Levels
Pump:
980 or 1480 nm
Pump power >5 mW
Emission:
1.52-1.57 m
Long living upper state (10 ms)
Gain  30 dB
Technical Characteristics of
EDFA
EDFAs have a number of attractive technical characteristics
Efficient pumping
Minimal polarisation sensitivity
Low insertion loss
High output power (this is not gain but raw amount of possible
output power)
Low noise
Low distortion and minimal interchannel crosstalk
Amplified Spontaneous
Emission
 Erbium randomly emits photons between 1520
and 1570 nm
 Spontaneous emission (SE) is not polarized or coherent
 Like any photon, SE stimulates emission of other photons
 With no input signal, eventually all optical energy is consumed into
amplified spontaneous emission
 Input signal(s) consume metastable electrons  much less ASE
Random spontaneous
emission (SE)
Amplified
Amplification along fiber spontaneous
emission (ASE)
Gain Compression
 Total output power:

Amplified signal + ASE
 EDFA is in saturation if almost all
Erbium ions are consumed for Total P out
amplification
 Total output power remains almost
constant
 Lowest noise figure
 Preferred operating point

 Power levels in link stabilize
automatically
Amplifier Length
•As the signal travels along the length of the amplifier it becomes stronger due
to amplification.
•As the pump power travels through the amplifier its level decreases due to
absorption.
•Thus, both the signal power and the pump power vary along the length of the
amplifier. At any point we can have only a finite number of erbium ions and
therefore we can only achieve a finite gain (and a finite maximum power) per unit
length of the amplifier.
•In an amplifier designed for single wavelength operation the optimal amplifier
length is a function of the signal power the pump power, the erbium concentration
and the amount of gain required.
•In an amplifier designed for multi wavelength operation there is another
consideration - the flatness of the gain curve over the range of amplified
wavelengths. With a careful design and optimisation of the amplifier's length we
can produce a nearly flat amplifier gain curve.
Optical Gain (G)
G = S Output / S Input
S Output: output signal (without noise from amplifier)
Gain (dB)
S Input: input signal 40
P Input: -30 dBm
30
 Input signal dependent -20 dBm
-10 dBm
 Operating point (saturation) of 20 -5 dBm
EDFA strongly depends on
power and wavelength of
incoming signal 10
1520 1540 1560 1580
Wavelength (nm)
EDFA Applications
&
Selection/Applications
Spectral usability of Amplifiers
Applications of optical amplifiers
EDFA Categories
 In-line amplifiers to increase transmission distance
 Installed every 30 to 70 km along a link
 Good noise figure, medium output power
 Power boosters to boost transmitted power
 Up to +17 dBm power, amplifies transmitter output
 Also used in cable TV systems before a star coupler
 Pre-amplifiers to improve receiver sensitivity
 Low noise amplifier in front of receiver
 Remotely pumped
 Electronic free extending links up to 200 km and more
)often found in submarine applications(
TX RX
Pump Pump
Pumping Directions
Additional pumping options

Multistage EDFAs
Two-Stage EDFA Line

Amplifier with Shared
Pump. Pump power would
typically be split in a ratio
different from 50:50.
Some new EDFA designs concatenate two or even three amplifier stages. An
amplifier “stage” is considered to consist of any unbroken section of erbium
doped fiber. Multistage amplifiers are built for a number of reasons:
1. To increase the power output whilst retaining low noise
2. To flatten the total amplifier gain response
3. To reduce amplified stimulated emission noise
Commercial Designs
EDF EDF
Input Output
Isolator Isolator
Input Pump Lasers Output

Monitor Monitor
Telemetry &
Remote Control
Security/Safety Features
 Input power monitor

 Turning on the input signal can cause high output power spikes
that can damage the amplifier or following systems
 Control electronics turn the pump laser(s) down if the input
signal stays below a given threshold for more than about 2 to 20
µs
 Back reflection monitor

 Open connector at the output can be a laser safety hazard
 Straight connectors typically reflect 4% of the light back
 Back reflection monitor shuts the amplifier down if back
reflected light exceeds certain limits
Spectral Response
of EDFAs
&
Gain Flattening
Output versus wavelength
EDFA Gain Spectrum
 Erbium can provide about 40-50 nm of bandwidth, from 1520 to 1570 nm

 Gain spectrum depends on the glass used, eg. silica or zblan glass
 Gain spectrum is not flat, significant gain variations
30
EDFA gain
20 spectrum
Gain
(dB)
10
1520 1530 1540 1550 1560

Wavelength (nm)
Gain Characteristics of EDFA
Gain (amplifier) - is the ratio in decibels
of input power to output power.
Gain at 1560 nm is some 3 dB higher
than gain at 1540 nm (this is twice as
much).
In most applications (if there is only a
single channel or if there are only a few
amplifiers in the circuit) this is not too
much of a limitation.
WDM systems use many
wavelengths within the
amplified band. If we have a
very long WDM link with
many amplifiers the
difference in response in
various channels adds up.
Flattening of the Gain Curve
Techniques
1. Operating the device at 77° K. This produces a much better (flatter) gain curve but
it's not all that practical.
2. Introducing other dopant materials (such as aluminium or ytterbium) along with
the erbium into the fibercore.
3. Amplifier length is another factor influencing the flatness of the gain curve.
4. Controlling the pump power (through a feedback loop) is routine to reduce
amplified spontaneous emission.
5. Adding an extra WDM channel locally at the amplifier (“gain clamping”).
6. Manipulating the shape of the fiber waveguide within the amplifier.
At the systems level there are other things that can be done to compensate:
7. Using “blazed” fiberBragg gratings as filters to reduce the peaks in the response
curve.
8. To transmit different WDM channels at different power levels to compensate for
later amplifier gain characteristics.
Gain Flattening Concept
Noise in EDFAs
Amplifiers Chains and Signal Level
 Sample system uses 0.25 atten fiber, 80 km fiber sections, 19 dB

amplifiers with a noise figure of 5 dB
fiber Link
Optical
Transmitte
Receiver
r
1 2 N
Optical Amplifiers fiber Section
 Amplifier can compensate for attenuation
 Cannot compensate for dispersion (and crosstalk in DWDM systems)

 Each amplifier restores the signal level to a value almost equivalent to
the level at the start of the section - in principle reach is extended to 700
km +
Noise Figure (NF)
 NF = P ASE / (h• • G • B OSA)
P ASE: ASE power measured by OSA

h: Plank’s constant
: Optical frequency
G: Gain of EDFA
B OSA: Optical bandwidth [Hz]of OSA
 Input signal dependent

• In a saturated EDFA, the NF
depends mostly on the
wavelength of the signal
• Physical limit: 3.0 dB
Future & Research
Pumplasers
Bandwidth and Length

 Today EDFA amplifies uses the C- and L band
 Praseodynium-doped selinid opens the L+ band
 Raman amplifiers opens the S band
References
Optical Fiber communication , Gerd Keiser 3rd edition
 Applied Optoelectronics Centre (www.compeng.dit.ie)
Optical Communications Systems, Dr. Yuliya Semenova, School of
Electronic
and Communications Engineering
fiber_optic_test_and_measurement_HP, Dennis Derickson editor
Fiber-Optic Communication Systems, 3rd (Agrawal 2002)
Dr. Dietmar Knipp ,Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering,
International University Bremen : Photonics and Optical Communication

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College of engineering

Electronic and Communication

Erbium doped fiber amplifiers

Issues: Gain flattening and Noise

Loss compensation: Repeaters at every 20-50 km

EDFA = Erbium Doped fibre Amplifier

Variety of optical amplifier types exist, including:

Optical fiber amplifiers are now the most common type

One of the most successful optical processing functions

Also used as a building block in DWDM systems

1480 or 980 Erbium Doped Fiber

Input WDM Output

= Fusion Splice Pump Source

 Total output power:

 Preferred operating point

Additional pumping options

Two-Stage EDFA Line

Input Pump Lasers Output

 Input power monitor

 Back reflection monitor

 Erbium can provide about 40-50 nm of bandwidth, from 1520 to 1570 nm

1520 1530 1540 1550 1560

 Sample system uses 0.25 atten fiber, 80 km fiber sections, 19 dB

Optical Amplifiers fiber Section

 Amplifier can compensate for attenuation

 Cannot compensate for dispersion (and crosstalk in DWDM systems)

P ASE: ASE power measured by OSA

 Input signal dependent

Bandwidth and Length

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