All-optical gain controlled l-band edfa structure with reduced four-wave mixing cross-talk

Abstract

An approach for minimizing four-wave mixing (FWM) cross-talk (XT) in a WDM (wavelength division multiplexing) optical communication system is disclosed. An Erbium doped Fiber Amplifier (EDFA) includes a pre-amplifier that receives an input optical signal and outputs an amplified input optical signal. The pre-amplifier includes the following components: a first active fiber that carries WDM signals corresponding to a particular operating band (e.g., L-band); a co-propagating pump laser that induces high inversion in a portion of the first active fiber; a filter that is coupled to the first active fiber and slightly inverts the gain tilt of the WDM signals and suppresses the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) lights accumulated at wavelengths shorter than the signal bandwidth; a second active fiber that is coupled to the filter; and a counter-propagating pump laser that induces high inversion in a portion of the second active fiber. An optical unit (e.g., an optical add/drop module, a gain equalizing filter (GEF), or a dispersion compensating fiber (DCF)) may be coupled to the pre-amplifier and receives the amplified input signal, in which the optical unit introduces a prescribed loss to the WDM system. A booster amplifier is coupled to the optical unit and is configured to amplify a signal that is output from the optical unit. An automatic optical gain control (AOGC) mechanism of the EDFA provides nearly constant gain that is independent of the number of channels utilized in the WDM system and also minimizes system penalties due to fast relaxation oscillations induced by adding/dropping of channels.