Title :
Gain distribution measurement of an erbium-doped silica-based waveguide amplifier using a complex OLCR
Author :
Takada, Kazumasa ; Oguma, Manabu ; Yamada, Hiroaki ; Mitachi, Seiko ; Golling, Matthias
Author_Institution :
Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., NTT Opto-Electron. Labs., Ibaraki, Japan
Abstract :
We have measured the gain distributions of a 38-cm-long erbium-doped silica-based waveguide amplifier with different pump powers by using a complex optical low coherence reflectometer. The spatial resolution is /spl sim/5 mm and the noise level is /spl plusmn/1 dB. The measured distributions agree well with those derived from rate equations. We can estimate such amplifier parameters as the stimulated emission coefficient and the optimum waveguide length enabling us to achieve the maximum gain for any pump power.
Keywords :
erbium; gain measurement; laser variables measurement; optical planar waveguides; reflectometry; solid lasers; stimulated emission; waveguide lasers; 1.53 to 1.56 mum; 38 cm; Er:SiO/sup 2/-based waveguide amplifier; Rayleigh backscatter signal; SiO/sub 2/:Er; complex OLCR; gain distribution measurement; maximum gain; noise level; optical low coherence reflectometer; optimum waveguide length; pump power dependence; rate equations; spatial resolution; stimulated emission coefficient; Coherence; Distributed amplifiers; Erbium-doped fiber amplifier; Gain measurement; Optical amplifiers; Optical noise; Optical pumping; Optical waveguides; Semiconductor optical amplifiers; Stimulated emission;
Journal_Title :
Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE
