EDFA gain transients: experimental demonstration of a low cost electronic control

Er-doped fibre amplifier (EDFA) gain transients are dynamic performance-degrading effects that need to be effectively suppressed in next-generation reconfigurable optical networks. In this paper, we experimentally assess the feasibility of an electronic dynamic gain control based on low-cost optoelectronic components, showing that a linearized electrical circuit and a control bandwidth smaller than 1 MHz can achieve the same performance as the commonly proposed all-optical feedback solutions.