Nortel Networks Corporation

James Regan

Kevan Peter Jones

Simon P Parry

Alan Robinson

Jonathan Paul King

Robert William Keys

Mark R Hinds

Barrie Flintham

Nigel Edward Jolley

Jonathan Stuart Drake

Mark E Bray

Jonathan W Gill

Joseph Mun

Alan A Solheim

Martin P Poettcker

Robert A Baker

Roger M Gibb

Toby J Reid

An optical amplifier comprises a doped fiber and a pump source for providing pump light to the fiber. A power measurement circuit is provided for measuring the output power of the amplifier and a disable circuit is controlled to disable the pump source in response to the output power of an output pulse exceeding a predetermined limit. In this way, power surges can be avoided. Preferably, the predetermined limit takes into account the duration of the output pulse, so that the disable circuit can be tailored to pulse power versus pulse duration standardised limits.

Optical amplifier pump control

In a WDM optical transmission system employing optical amplifiers in its transmission path, a supervisory signal channel, used for monitoring and controlling the operation of the amplifiers and spectrally separated from the data transmission, may be multiplexed with the data. A construction of amplifier is disclosed which is capable of being upgraded with an upgrade of the transmission system to include additional data handling capacity, for instance data transmission in an additional waveband and/or in the opposite direction, without interruption of the pre-upgrade data transmission path through the amplifiers. This is accomplished by the use of channel dropping and insertion filters disposed so that the amplifying data transmission path extends via the drop/insertion channel of those filters.

Optical amplifiers

Growing community of inventors

Devon, United Kingdom

James Regan