Method and apparatus for monitoring the momental wavelength of light, and an optical amplifier and an optical communication system which incorporate the method and apparatus to adjust gain tilt

Abstract

An apparatus which receives an input light having a spectrum, and determines a momental wavelength of the spectrum. The apparatus includes a decoupling unit, a weighting unit and a computation unit. The decoupling unit decouples a portion of the received input light, to provide a first signal representing the input light with the portion decoupled therefrom, and a second signal representing the decoupled portion. The weighting unit weights the second signal. The computation unit determines the momental wavelength from the power of the first signal and the power of the weighted second signal. An optical amplifier is also provided which determines the momental wavelength of an amplified light, and controls a gain tilt parameter of the optical amplifier in accordance with the determined momental wavelength, to reduce gain tilt. An optical communication system is also provided which includes a plurality of such optical amplifiers sequentially arranged along an optical transmission line.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.