Lightwave Electronics Corporation

Lightwave Electronics Mountain View

Yidong Zhou

Mark Alan Arbore

Jeffrey Dellert Kmetec

A split-band amplifying apparatus that has a first section for amplifying a long wavelength band of an optical signal and a second section equipped with a fiber amplifier for amplifying a short wavelength band of the optical signal. The fiber amplifier in the second section uses a short-pass fiber with a depressed cladding cross-section and core doped with an active material, e.g., Erbium, and pumped to a high relative inversion D. The split-band amplifying apparatus can be used to amplify signals whose short wavelength band includes at least a portion of the S-band and whose long wavelength band includes at least a portion of the C- and/or L-band.

Split-band amplifying apparatus using a depressed-profile fiber amplifier

A source that employs an Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifier (EDFA) for generating light in an S-band of wavelengths. The EDFA uses a fiber having a core with a core cross section surrounded by a depressed cladding with a depressed cladding cross section and a secondary cladding with a secondary cladding cross section. A pump source is provided for pumping the Erbium contained in the core of the fiber to a high relative inversion D, such that the Erbium exhibits positive gains in the S-band and high gains in a long wavelength band longer than the S-band. The core cross-section, the depressed cladding cross-section, and the refractive indices n, n, and nare selected to produce losses at least comparable to the high gains in the long wavelength band and losses substantially smaller than the positive gains in the S-band. The source uses the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) produced by the EDFA to generate broadband light and/or narrowband light with the aid of a wavelength selecting mechanism that selects an output wavelength of the light within the ASE emission spectrum of the EDFA.

Growing community of inventors

Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Yidong Zhou