Properties of fiber Raman amplifiers and their applicability to digital optical communication systems

Bit error rate performances of fiber Raman amplifiers both as booster amplifiers and as detection preamplifiers are studied in intensity modulation/direct detection optical communication systems. It is theoretically shown that, in the booster amplifier application, receiver sensitivity degradation due to amplification can be made less than 0.2 dB for signal-to-noise power ratio larger than 20 dB, and thus an allowable transmission line loss can be increased approximately by the value of Raman gain. For detection preamplifier use, receiver sensitivities in the Raman preamplifier system are numerically calculated in terms of minimum detectable signal power at 100-Mbit/s and 2-Gbit/s bit rates. In both bit rates, it is shown that, for a Raman gain greater than 20 dB, minimum detectable signal power can be improved by more than 15 dB over the conventional detection level without Raman amplification. Preliminary experiments are carried out using a 1.32-μm Nd:YAG laser and a 1.4-μm laser diode as pump and signal light sources, respectively. The experimental results are in good agreement with theoretical estimations