Systems and methods for optical pump redundancy

Abstract

These systems and methods advantageously provide redundant optical pumping for an amplification system thereby providing safeguards for optical communications. A plurality of optical pump lasers generate a plurality of initial optical signals. A plurality of splitters split the initial optical signals generated from at least one of the optical pump lasers to form split optical signals. A plurality of couplers couple the split optical signals from one of the optical pump lasers with another one of the split optical signals from another of the optical pump lasers to form a plurality of pump optical signals from a plurality of redundant optical paths. By coupling pump optical signals from a plurality of optical pump lasers over redundant optical paths, there is no single point of failure. As a result, failure in any single component or optical path will not damage or degrade the optical amplifier.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.