Lucent Technologies Inc.

Terry William Cline

Ernest Eisenhardt Bergmann

Stephen Kenneth Fairchild

A reflective Faraday-based optical system is formed to include a partially transmissive optical reflector so that a portion of the optical signal propagating through the system will not be reflected but instead used as an input signal to a monitoring system. The partially transmissive reflector is configured to transmit only a relatively small portion of the optical signal (about 1-10%) so that the performance of the system is not affected. The optical monitoring arrangement may comprise one or more photodetectors, optical fibers, or other optical components for capturing the transmitted signal and converting into an electrical representation that can be evaluated to monitor the power in the optical signal.

Reflective Faraday-based optical devices including an optical monitoring

An optical amplifier having high overall gain and low gain tilt, useful in an optical transmission system or the like. The amplifier has a doped optical fiber as the amplification medium and two pumps, the shorter wavelength one propagating with the signal being amplified and the longer wavelength one propagating opposite the signal being amplified. A wavelength selective reflective fiber grating is disposed along the doped fiber to reflect the second pump signal. The addition of the grating allows the amplifier to have a higher gain with a lower gain tilt than amplifiers without the grating. Positioning the grating along the fiber allows for the control of the overall gain with respect to the gain tilt for a given fiber length.

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Bethlehem Township, PA, United States of America

Terry William Cline