INTRODUCTION

Optical system can achieve much higher data rates than electronic system. The most important factors limiting the transmission distance in fiber optical communication systems is the optical power loss caused by scattering and absorption mechanisms in optical fiber. Electrical repeaters, which require optical-electrical signal conversion have made the systems more complex and increased their installation costs. The optical amplifiers that were developed in 1980s enable the optical signals to be directly amplified optically. Erbium-doped Fiber Amplifiers:Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers are the by far most important fiber amplifiers in the context of long-range optical fiber communications; they can efficiently amplify light in the 1.5-m wavelength region, where telecom fibers have their loss minimum. Erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) is a key component of wavelength-divisionmultiplexing (WDM) optical transmission systems. Since each span in a transmission system has a different attenuation, the EDFA gain must change according to the optical power level input into the amplifier. In such an EDFA, the population inversion level averaged along the erbium-doped fiber (EDF) is kept constant to maintain a flat gain condition. The average population inversion determines the EDF gain per unit length and EDFs with different lengths have different flattened gain spectra, which are the optimized gain spectra for WDM signal amplification. Therefore, a typical variable gain amplifier consists of two amplifier stages with a variable optical attenuator (VOA) inserted between them . To avoid excess NF degradation, a variable gain EDFA has been proposed that modifies the EDF length by using an optical switch . However, the variable gain EDFA in assumes the use of a single 2 2 bulk switch to modify the EDF length since the use of many optical bulk switches is impractical, and this results in the selection of only two EDF lengths. Changing the EDF lengths of more than two EDF combinations by using bulk optical switches is not realistic in terms of amplifier size, and integrated optical switches are preferable to optical bulk switches for the selection of multiple EDFs. Optical switches (SWs) integrated on a silica-based planar lightwave circuit (PLC) make it possible to realize an EDFA that can select a number of EDFs and choose a wide range of EDF lengths without needing a large space for optical switches. The total average inversion level of the two amplifier stages is kept constant and variable gain is achieved by changing the VOA attenuation. An amplifier with such a two-stage amplifier configuration suffers from an increased noise figure (NF) in the low gain region, which is caused by the additional attenuation of the VOA. The NF degradation limits the gain range and results in the need for a large number of amplifier inventories with different gain ranges, which increases the cost of optical transmission systems.

Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifiers (EDFA) made by doping the silica fiber with erbium ions can operate in a broad range within the 1550 nm window at which the attenuation of silica fiber is minimum and therefore it is ideal for the optical fiber communication systems operating at this wavelength range. Erbium Doped Fiber is usually pumped by semiconductor lasers at 980nm or 1480nm. The main issue that is to be considered in EDFA is the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise. The ASE noise on interference with the input signal increases the error rate thereby decreasing the performance of the amplifier.

Setup and Operation Principle A typical setup of a simple erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) is shown in Figure 1. Its core is the erbium-doped optical fiber, which is typically a single-mode fiber. In the shown case, the active fiber is pumped with light from two laser diodes (bidirectional pumping), although unidirectional pumping in the forward or backward direction (co-directional and counter-directional pumping) is also very common. The pump light, which most often has a wavelength around 980 nm and sometimes around 1450 nm, excites the erbium ions (Er3+) into the 4I13/2 state (in the case of 980-nm pumping via 4I11/2), from where they can amplify light in the 1.5-m wavelength region via stimulated emission back to the ground-state manifold 4I15/2. (See also Figure 1 in the article on erbium-doped gain media.)

Fig:-Schematic diagram of the erbium-doped fiber amplifier system: LD, laser diode;
WDM, wavelength division multiplexer

The setup shown also contains two pig-tailed (fiber-coupled) optical isolators. The isolator at the input prevents light originating from amplified spontaneous emission from disturbing any previous stages, whereas that at the output suppresses lasing (or possibly even destruction) if output light is reflected back to the amplifier. Without isolators, fiber amplifiers can be sensitive to back-reflections. Apart from optical isolators, various other components can be contained in a commercial fiber amplifier. For example, there can be fiber couplers and photodetectors for monitoring

optical power levels, pump laser diodes with control electronics and gain-flattening filters. For particularly compact packages, various passive optical components can be combined into a photonic integrated circuit (planar lightwave circuit). Very high signal gains, as used, e.g., for the amplification of ultrashort pulses to high energies, are usually realized with amplifier chains, consisting of several amplifier stages with additional optical elements (e.g. isolators, filters, or modulators) in between.

The performance of an EDFA is characterized by a set of equations called rate equations and propagation equations. In this study, an EDFA simulation program has been written in Matlab to characterize Gain, Noise Figure and ASE power variations of a forward pumped EDFA operating in C band as functions of Er3+ fiber length, injected pump power, signal input power. PRINCIPLE OF OPERATION The principle involved is the working of laser itself. The erbium ion are able to exist in several energy states .when an erbium ion is in a high energy state a photon of light will stimulated it to give up some of its energy in the form of light and return to a lower energy state. This is called stimulated emission. To make this principle work the erbium atom should have taken to an existed state. The pump used for this is a laser diode which emits light at either 980nm or 1480nm, high powered (10-20mw) beam of light such that erbium ions will absorb it and jump to existed state. A high powered beam of light is mixed with the input signal using a wavelength selective coupler The mixed light is guided into a section of fibre with erbium ion a section of fibre with erbium ion included in the core This high powered light beam excites the erbium ion to their higher state When the photon belonging to the signal meets the excited erbium atoms, they give up some of their energy to the signal and return to their lower energy state

ENERGY BAND DIAGRAM OF ERBIUM:-

Fig:- Energy band diagram of erbium in silica glass. The energy states are actually grouped to sub states. Electron can occupy any sub state within their current band. Also sub state broadening occurs due to thermal energy. This makes wide range of energy levels available. Thus the device amplifies over a relatively wide range.

THE STRUCTURE OF EDFA AND ITS PUMPING REQUIREMENTS The structure of a typical EDFA is shown in figure EDFAs consist of optical couplers to combine pump and signal lights injected to active fiber, unidirectional optical isolators, pumping lasers, polarisation couplers to combine pump sources and optical band pass filters to reduce out of band noise. The gain characteristics of EDFAs depend mainly on their pumping schemes. EDFAs can be pumped at 980 nm or 1480 nm, and with different configurations: backward, forward or bi-directional. The pumping at 980 nm provides lower noise figure than pumping at 1480 nm. Therefore preamplifier version of EDFA chooses 980 nm for pumping wavelength. On the other hand, 1480 nm pumping has higher quantum efficiency and so provides higher output power at a lower cost and therefore it is preferred for booster amplifier operations. A three level model can be used for 980nm pumps, while a two level model usually suffices for 1480nm pumps In forward pumping, both of the signal and pump lights propagate in

the same direction through the fiber whereas in the backward pumping they propagate in the opposite direction. The forward pumping direction provides the lowest noise figure. In fact, the noise is sensitive to the gain and the gain is the highest when the input power is the lowest. Backward pumping provides the highest saturated output power. Bi-directional pumping scheme has a higher performance than the other two by combining the lowest noise figure and the highest output power advantageous although it requires two pump lasers. In addition, in this scheme the small signal gain is uniformly distributed along the whole active fiber. 1. Co-propagate pumping:In this type of pumping the signal direction and pumping direction are same. 2. Counter propagate pumping: In this the pumping direction is opposite to that of signal direction.ie pumping is done from output side. 3. Bidirectional pumping:- In this pumping is done from both sides i.e. from input as well as from output side.

GAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF EDFA

The typical gain curve of commercial EDFA plots gain versus wavelength is seen in below fig

Fig

Gain curve of typical EDFA

The scale on Y-axis is in db and is therefore logarithmic. Gain at 1560nm is approximately 3db higher than gain at 1540nm, which is twice as much in latter case. In most applicationfor a single channel or limited number of amplifiers this is not too much of a limitation. If we have a very long WDM link with many amplifiers the difference in response in various channels adds up and difference levels could be up to 100db.

GAIN SATURATION
When the input power of an amplifier is increased you always reach a point where the gain saturation that is although the input power is increased the output stays constant.

Fig.. EDFA behaviour in gain saturation

Under gain saturation all of the pump power is used up already and no more power is available. The fig 3.5 shows the characteristics of electronic and optical amplifiers in gain saturation condition. The main difference between electronics amplifiers and EDFA s in gain saturation condition is When the input power is increased the total gain of the EDFA decreases slowly. An electronic amplifier operation is relatively linear until its gain saturates and then suddenly gives out a constant value. An erbium amplifier at saturation simply applies less gain to all its input regardless of the instantaneous signal level. Thus it does not distort the signal. Electronic amplifiers on gain saturation produces undesirable effects such as cross talk while there arises no such problem in the case of EDFAs.

NOISE IN EDFA :Wherever there is a gain in system there is noise. The predominant source of noise in EDFA is amplified spontaneous emission (ASE). The generation of ASE noise in a pre-amp EDFA is an effect of the spontaneous de-excitation of the excited erbium electrons. As the electrons have a finite excited state lifetime, some of the electrons return spontaneously to the ground state emitting a photon that has no coherence characteristics with respect to the incoming optical signal, as opposed to a photon generated by stimulated emission that collection of such spontaneously generated photons, being multiplied by the fiber amplifier, forms background noise. This background noise is known as amplified spontaneous emission. ASE is produced over a range of wavelengths exactly corresponding to the gain spectrum of the amplifier. Most of the ASE power is spread over different wavelength from which the signal wavelength can be filtered. For reducing ASE noise following steps can be adopted The amplified design should be carefully controlled to minimize the amount of spontaneous emission. Filters can be placed within the amplifier or on the link to filter out the wavelength outside the channels being transmitted it is found that spontaneous emissions peaks at 1553nm

Isolators can be placed between the amplifier stages to prevent backward propagation of ASE from consuming pump power.

Switching EDF variable gain amplifier(SW-EDFA) The SW-EDFA employs SWs and VOAs integrated on a PLC to change the ways in which four EDFs combine . First we describe the concept and advantage of the SWEDFA . we compare the SW-EDFA numerically with a conventional variable gain EDFA in terms of NF and required pump power by using an analytical model of the EDFA. Since the SW-EDFA can havemany different EDF combinations, the pump power requirement of the EDFA will differ fromthe variable gain in , which also clarifies the pump power needed to obtain variable gain, with two amplifier stages.

CONCEPT OF VARIABLE GAIN FIBER AMPLIFIER WITH EDF SWITCHING:An SW-EDFA consists of multiple amplifier stages, SWs, and VOAs, and each amplifier stage has one EDF as an amplification medium. Changing the direction of the optical switches changes the active EDF combinations. The different combinations with different discrete EDF lengths change the amplifier gain discretely. The VOAs adjust the gain so that a continuous gain is obtained between the discrete gains.

Fig-

Schematic configuration of an SW-EDFA.

ADVANTAGE OF VARIABLE GAIN FIBER AMPLIFIER WITH EDF SWITCHING:-

The Below Fig is a schematic illustration of the advantage of the SW-EDFA over a conventional variable gain fiber amplifier in terms of NF. The horizontal and vertical axes indicate the VOA attenuation and the flattened gain or NF of an EDFA, respectively. Here the flattened gain means that the wavelength dependence of the signal gain is minimized for WDM signal amplification. Since the gain value for a flattened gain is determined uniquely for a given EDF length, the flattened gain decreases with linear increases in the VOA attenuation.

Fig:- Schematic explaining the advantage of an SW-EDFA.

Different total EDF lengths yield different gain lines. On the other hand, the NF increases as the VOA attenuation increases. The SW-EDFA varies the total EDF length by switching the signal route and EDF combination. The flattened gain of the SW-EDFA traces several gain lines, while that of a conventional EDFA traces only one gain line. The result is that the VOA attenuation range is much smaller for the SW-EDFA than for a conventional variable gain EDFA. The small VOA attenuation range means that the degradation of the NF of this amplifier is less than that of a conventional variable gain amplifier. In addition, the pump powers required in the SW-EDFA may be smaller than that in a conventional variable gain EDFA. A portion of the launched pump power is wasted in a conventional EDFA due to the high gain in the amplifier stages and the large attenuation of the VOA, while the SW-EDFA has less VOA attenuation, which provides the potential to use the pump powers launched into EDFs efficiently.