OPTICAL AMPLIFIERS

Necessity of Optical amplifiers?

To Transmit a signals over long distances
(>100km), to compensate attenuation losses.
Initially this was accomplished with an
optoelectronic module consisting of optical
RX, regenerator, equalizer, & an optical TX to
send the data.
Although functional this arrangement is
limited by optical to electrical & electrical to
optical conversions.
Why Optical Amplifiers?
Increase transmission distance
by increasing optical power coupled to transmission
fiber(power booster)
by compensating optical fiber losses(in-line amplifier,
remote pump amplifier)
by improving receiver sensitivity (optical preamplifier)
Ingredients : Pump energy, amplification medium
Optical output
Pumping of energy
Optical input ...
... amplification
medium
l1 l2 l3 l 4 l 5l 6l 7l 8 l 16

l l l l l l l l l
 Reasons to use the optical amplifiers:
Reliability
Flexibility
Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM)
Low Cost
Function :
Amplification of optical signal without
conversion to electrical signal
 Traditional Optical Communication
System
Loss compensation: Repeaters at every 20-50 km
 Optically Amplified Systems
EDFA = Erbium Doped Fibre Amplifier
 Optical Amplification
Variety of optical amplifier types exist, including:

Semiconductor optical amplifiers

Optical fibre amplifiers (Erbium Doped Fibre Amplifiers)

Distributed fibre amplifiers (Raman Amplifiers)

Optical fibre amplifiers are now the most common type

One of the most successful optical processing functions

Also used as a building block in DWDM systems

Source: Master 7_5

The Need of Optical Amplification
Why? Extend distance light signal can travel
without regeneration
Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers (EDFAs) application in
long haul. Todays amplifier of choice.
Erbium-Doped Waveguide Amplifiers (EDWAs)
application in metro and access networks
Raman Amplifiers application in DWDM
Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers (SOA) not fiber
based type, application in metro and access networks
Amplifier Standard Fiber

Pump Lasers
 General Application of Optical
Amplification
In-line amplifier
Preamplifier
Power (booster) amplifier
LAN booster amplifier

Amplifier Standard Fiber

Pump Lasers
Fig. 11-1: Applications of optical amplifiers
 Inline optical amplifier
In single mode link, the effect of fiber dispersion may small
so that the main limitation to repeater spacing is fiber
attenuation.
In such case no necessary to regenerate complete signal.
So simple amplification is sufficient.
So here, use inline optical amplifier to compensate the
transmission loss and increase the distance between repeaters.
 Preamplifier
It is placed in-front end of optical receiver.
The signal is amplified before detecting by receiver and converting
into electric signal.
So signal to noise ratio degradation due to thermal noise is
supressed.
So provide larger gain and broader bandwidth.
 Power amplifier
It is also call boost amplifier
It place immediately after optical
transmitter
It increase power distance by 10-100 km,
depending on amplifier gain and fiber loss
It compensate coupler insertion loss and
power splitting loss.
 Improvement of System Gain

Improvement Improvement Key

in gain(dB) in length(km) technology
Booster 10 - 15 40 - 60 High efficiency
amplifier
Preamplifier 5 - 10 (APD) 20 - 40 Low noise
10 - 15 (PIN) 40- 60
In-line 15 - 30 60 - 120 Low noise
amplifier Supervisory
Remote pump 5 - 15 30 - 60 High pumping
amplifier power
 Coherence

Incoherent light waves Coherent light waves

 Atomic Transitions

Stimulated absorption
Stimulated emission
Fig. 11-2: Generic optical amplifier
 Pumping
Here use the population inversion mechanism for generating
stimulated emission same as laser. Dont have optical feedback
system
The device absorb energy supplied from external source called
pump. The pump supply the energy to electron in active medium,
which raise their higher energy level produce population inversion.
The incoming signal will trigger these excited electron to drop to
lower level through stimulated emission process.
Since one incoming photons stimulates many excited electrons to
emits photon with same energy of dropping to ground state, the
result is amplified optical signal.
 Condition for Amplification by
Stimulated Emission
Population Inversion:
More Electrons in higher energy level
Pumping:
Process to achieve population inversion
usually through external energy source
 Semiconductor optical amplifier
Work in o-band (1310nm) as well in C-band(1530-1560 nm)
also they can integrate easily in same substrate.
Less power consume , less component, more compact
More rapid carrier response so the gain at particular
wavelength to fluctuate with the signal rate for speeds up to
several Gb/s, so it effect all over gain and effect also other
signal gain.
Rise to crosstalk effect when broad spectrum of wavelength
must be amplified
Operate at below thresholding voltage
Two types: Fabry-Perot or Traveling Wave Amp.
It belongs to travelling wave(TW) amplifier category.
 External Pumping
External current injection creates population inversion similar to
LASERs.
The rate equations can be defined as:
which is Current density in excited state.
is the external pumping rate, J(t) is the current
density, d is the active layer thickness.
r is the combined time constant coming from spontaneous
emission and carrier recombination mechanism.
Rst(t)is the stimulated emission rate and it is equal to:
where vg is the group velocity of the incident light, , optical
confinement factor, a is the gain constant, nth is threshold
carrier density, Nph is the photon density and g is the overall
gain per unit of length.

where Ps is the power of optical signal, w and d are width and

the thickness of active area respectively.
Example
Under steady state condition, variation of n vs time is zero,
therefore:
Substituting for Rp and Rst and solving for g yields:
 Amplifier gain
Amplifier gain or signal gain G is defined as:

or as we saw in the case of laser:

G is increasing with device length, however, the internal gain is

limited by gain saturation. G is depended on the optical input
intensity, as it increases EHP depleted from the active region. For
sufficiently large optical input, there will not be enough EHP to be
stimulated.
where, gm, , and L are the material gain coefficient, the effective
absorption coefficient of the material and amplifier length
respectively. g(z) is the overall gain per unit of length. It is depends
on the carrier density and signal wavelength.
 g(z)can written as:

go, the unsaturated medium gain per unit of length in the absence
of signal input.
Ps is the internal signal power at point z. Pamp,sat is the amplifier
saturation power defined as: internal power level at which the
gain/(unit length) has been halved.
The increase in the light power in incremental length of dz can be
expressed as:

Which can show:

and finally one can see that:

where Go= exp (goL) is the single-pass gain in

the absence of light.
Types of SOAs
 Fabry-perot Amplifier
In FPA the facet reflectivities are in order to 0.01 to 0.3 and
highly resonant amplifier.
Transmission characteristic comprises very narrow pass band.
The mode zero corresponds to peak gain wavelength and the
mode spacing is:
Light enter on facet appears amplified at the other facet, together with
inherent noise.
This device very sensitive to fluctuation in bias current, temperature,
and signal polarization.
Resonant in nature and high internal field,so used in non linear
application such as pulse shaping and bistable elements.
The narrow spectral bandwidth of FPA provides inherent noise
filtering with not provide with TW so increased level of noise.
 Cavity Gain

Gs single pass gain

-is single pass phase shift
fo=FP resonant frequency
f- free spectral range
The 3-db spectral bandwidth is
 1. Consider an InGaAsP SOA with w=5 m and d=0.5m.
vg= 2*10^8 m/s, if 1.0 W optical signal at 1550 nm enters the
device, find the photon density.
2. InGaAsP SOA with 1300nm,active area width 3m, thickness
0.3m, amplifier length 500 m, confinement factor 0.3,time
constant 1 ns,gain coefficient 2*10^-20 m2,threshold density
1.0*10^24 m-3.find (a)If a 100 mA bias current is applied to the
device, find the pumping Rate, (b)Find zero signal gain.
3. InGaAsP SOA active area width 5m, thickness 0.5m,group
velocity 2.0 * 10^8 m/s, Amplifier length 200 m, confinement
factor 0.3,time constant 1 ns, Gain coefficient 1*10^-20m2 ,
threshold density 1.0*10^24 m-3.find
(a)If a 100 mA bias current is applied to the device, find the
pumping Rate, (b)Find zero signal gain (c) saturation photon
density, (d) photon density if 1W signal at 1310nm enters the
amplifier. compare the results (c) and (d)
 0

So, using the amplifier must be done at

appropriate places where the optical power
is really low.
Gain versus wavelength
 Characteristic of SOA
1. polarization dependent-requires a polarization
maintaining fiber
2. relatively high gain-20 db
3.large bandwidth
4. can operate in the 800 1300 and 1500 nm
5.comapnct and can easily integrated with other
device
6. can be integrated into arrays
7.high noise figure and cross talk level due to non
linear phenomena such as 4-wave mixing
Erbium Doped Fiber
Amplifiers (EDFA)
 Basic EDF Amplifier Design

-most common Commercially available since the early 1990s

-Works best in the range 1530 to 1565 nm
-Gain up to 30 dB

Input WDM Isolator

1480 or 980
nm Pump Output
Laser

Erbium Doped Fiber

Erbium-doped Fibre Amplifier
Optical Optical
Isolator WDM(1550/980) WDM Isolator
Input Output

Er+3
PD PD
T

PUMP PUMP
LASER LASER

OPTICAL AMPLIFIER CONTROLLER

When you actually look at an EDFA block diagram you see the input on the left
the output on the right, photo diodes to measure input and output power levels,
pump lasers which are used to excite this piece of erbium doped fiber to a higher
energy state, and 1550 light is allowed to pass through.
The isolators are used to keep the 980 and 1480 pump wavelengths contained
in the fiber but allow 1550nm light to pass through.
 Erbium-doped Fibre Amplifier
Gain, G (dB) Spectrum of a typical EDFA

10log[(PSignal_Out - Pase) / PSignal_In] -20

-30
Noise Figure, F = SNRout / SNRin -40

dBm
S-band : 1440 - 1530nm -50
C-band : 1530 - 1565nm
-60
L-band : 1565 - 1625nm
-70
-801500 1520 1540 1560 1580 1600
wavelength
 Optical Gain (G)
G = S Output / S Input
S Output: output signal (without noise from amplifier)
S Input : input signal
Gain (dB)
40
Input signal dependent P Input: -30 dBm
Operating point (saturation) of
30 -20 dBm
EDFA strongly depends on
-10 dBm
power and wavelength of
incoming signal 20 -5 dBm

10
1520 1540 1560 1580
Wavelength (nm)
 Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier
EDFAs have revolutionized optical communications

All optical and fiber compatible

Wide bandwidth-20-70 nm

High Gain, 20-40 dB

High Power output >200 mW

Bit rate, modulation format, power and wavelength

insensitive

Low distortion and low noise (NF<5dB)

Low coupling loss

 Construction
Active medium of optical amplifier consist of a nominally
10-30 m length of fiber that has been lightly doped with a
rare earth material like erbium, yttebium , thulium, etc..
The host material is standard silica or fluride based glass.
So operating point of EDFA depends on material and
doping element
Here optical pumping used for external energy source
These required three energy level
The pump photon must have higher energy and shorter
wavelength than signal photon.
Fiber Optics Communication Technology-Mynbaev & Scheiner
 Amplification mechanism
Three energy level that erbium atoms in silica so Er+3 -
ground state, metastable state, and pumpband.
Understanding of energy transition and photon emission:
Ground state is separate pump band with 1.27eV
energy,980nm wavelength
bottom Ground state is separate top metastable band with
0.841eV energy, 1480nm wavelength
Bottom ground state is separate bottom of metastable band
with 0.814eV energy, 1530nm wavelength
Top Ground state is separate bottom of metastable band with
0.755eV energy, 1600nm wavelength
So possible pump wavelength 980 to 1480 and photon emitted
during electron transition can range from 1530 to 1600nm.
 Operation
1.Pump laser emitting 980 nm photons is used to excite ions from
ground state to pump band.
2.This excite ions decay quickly in1s to metastble band
Mechanical vibration during decay because some energy is released
and ions tend to populate bottom of metastable with 10ms
3.Pump photons with 1480 nm which similar signal energy and make
electrons jump to lightly populate top of metastable
4.these ions decay to bottom of metastable level.
5.some of ions move ground state in absence of external signal which
cause for spontaneous emission
6.When signal photons energies corresponding to the band gap energy
so some photons absorb by ions in ground and jump metastable state
7.Single photon now trigger the ions in metastable so they release the
new photons with stimulated emission and drop to ground state.
Absorption and gain spectra of an EDFA
 0

So, using the amplifier must be done at

appropriate places where the optical power
is really low.
 Amplifier noise

Spontaneous recombination give rise to a broad spectral back ground of

Photons .That get amplified along with signal.
 Raman Amplifier
It is based on non linear effect called stimulated raman
scattering
The effect due to interaction of optical energy to
vibration mode of lattice structure.
Absorbtion and releasing energy is different so produce
photon which is vibrational mode of material.
So wavelength shift called stokes shift.
Why do you need it :
amplify signals from 1270 to 1670 nm
any optical fiber can serve as the amplifying medium
Raman process itself provides high-power laser
Disadvantage: Cross-talk
 Raman Amplifier

Amplifier Gain
 Raman Amplifier

Wide bandwidth Raman amplifier can be

realized using multiple pumps
 Raman Amplifier

Multistage Amplifier
Counter propagating pump
 EDFA+Raman

Combined Raman and EDFA transmission

Experiment: DWDM (Lucent)
 Raman Amplifier
Advantages
Variable wavelength amplification possible

Compatible with installed SM fibre

Can be used to "extend" EDFAs

Can result in a lower average power over a span, good for lower crosstalk

Very broadband operation may be possible

Disadvantages
High pump power requirements, high pump power lasers have only
recently arrived

Sophisticated gain control needed

Noise is also an issue