Experimental Characterization of Signal Gain Evolution in Cladding-pumped Doped Fiber Amplifier
2023 Photonics & Electromagnetics Research Symposium (PIERS 2023): Proceedings 2023
Kaspars Zaķis, Sandis Spolītis, Toms Salgals, Lilita Ģēģere, Mareks Parfjonovs, Dmitrijs Prigunovs, Vjačeslavs Bobrovs, Andis Supe

Doped fiber optical amplifiers play a vital role in telecommunication systems. Their operation is enabled by the interaction of pump light and dopants within the fiber, which convert optical power to a higher wavelength. The typical implementation involves pumping a doped fiber core with an intense pump laser, thus amplifying a weaker input signal at a different wavelength. Achieving high output signal power, correspondingly, requires a high-powered pump laser. One of the methods for achieving higher output signal power is cladding-pumping, where a multimode pump source is used. While this results in lower pump absorption, it may have optical output power an order of magnitude higher than a conventional core-pumping source, reaching several watts, which easily offsets the weaker pump absorption. We present an experimental characterization of the gain profile evolution of a multi-channel signal propagating through an increasing length of double-clad Er3+/Yb3+-co-doped fiber. The test signal consists of 48 channels of equal power in the optical C-band spaced 100 GHz apart, where the per-channel input power is set between -27 and -10 dBm, while varying the pump source power between 0.6 and 2.0 W. The primary findings include the wavelength-dependent gain profile pivoting around the gain peaks as a function of doped fiber length, with longer wavelengths experiencing increasingly higher gain. Similarly, higher input signal power results in a higher proportion of the total output power going towards longer wavelengths. Simultaneously, despite the relatively low pump absorption, with the pump power levels involved, it is very possible to reach signal gain saturation at low signal powers typical for long-haul dense wavelength division multiplexing transmission systems.


Keywords
Fibers; Pumping (laser), Doped fiber; Experimental characterization; High output signal; Long wavelength; Output-signal power; Power; Pump absorption; Pump laser; Pump sources; Signal gain, Fiber amplifiers
DOI
10.1109/PIERS59004.2023.10221551
Hyperlink
https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.resursi.rtu.lv/document/10221551

Zaķis, K., Spolītis, S., Salgals, T., Ģēģere, L., Parfjonovs, M., Prigunovs, D., Bobrovs, V., Supe, A. Experimental Characterization of Signal Gain Evolution in Cladding-pumped Doped Fiber Amplifier. In: 2023 Photonics & Electromagnetics Research Symposium (PIERS 2023): Proceedings, Czech Republic, Prāga, 3-6 July, 2023. Piscataway: IEEE, 2023, pp.754-758. ISBN 979-8-3503-1285-0. e-ISBN 979-8-3503-1284-3. ISSN 2831-5790. e-ISSN 2831-5804. Available from: doi:10.1109/PIERS59004.2023.10221551

Publication language
English (en)
The Scientific Library of the Riga Technical University.
E-mail: uzzinas@rtu.lv; Phone: +371 28399196