The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 21, 2006
Filed:
Jun. 30, 2003
Erji Mao, Campbell, CA (US);
Stuart Maccormack, Mountain View, CA (US);
Greg Roth, Santa Ana, CA (US);
Steven Sanders, Belmont, CA (US);
Erji Mao, Campbell, CA (US);
Stuart MacCormack, Mountain View, CA (US);
Greg Roth, Santa Ana, CA (US);
Steven Sanders, Belmont, CA (US);
JDS Uniphase Corporation, San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
The present application relates to a Raman amplifier having an increased dynamic range, and particularly for laser pump sources and a method of pumping Raman fiber amplifiers over a greater dynamic range. In a multi-channel optical system, optical amplifiers must be able to provide gains over a large dynamic range, which is determined by the distribution of node-to-node distances in the network, as well as the number of channels. The present invention has found that the dynamic range of a Raman amplifier can be significantly increased by using pulse width modulation to pulse pump current at or near the minimum current stability threshold, in order to produce lower power output. The duty cycle of the pulsed current is selected to achieve a time-averaged operating condition, thus the time averaged pump power can be reduced in a linear fashion well below the capability of a continuous wave system.