High gain limiting erbium-doped fiber amplifier with wide dynamic range
AssigneeBell Communications Research, Inc.
InventorWinston I. Way
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An optical limiting amplifier is disclosed having a high gain over a wide dynamic range of input power levels. The amplifier has an input stage (102) and an output stage (103), each of which includes an erbium-doped fiber amplifier (104, 106). The erbium-doped fiber amplifier in the input stage provides a high gain in order to saturate the amplifier in the second stage. The erbium-doped fiber amplifier in the output stage is fabricated with a small core diameter to saturate at reasonably small signal levels, and has a relatively lower total number of erbium ions in order to limit amplification once deep saturation is reached.
Claims5
An optical limiting amplifier comprising:
- an input stage comprising a first erbium-doped fiber amplifier;
- and
- an output stage in cascade with said input stage comprising a second erbium-doped fiber amplifier, the fiber in said second erbium-doped fiber having a fiber core diameter of less than about 4 .mu.m and a product of erbium ion concentration (in ppm) times erbium core area (in m.sup.2) times fiber length (in m) of less than about 8.5.times.10.sup.-9.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.