Experimental characterization of TDM-pumped distributed Raman amplifier with commercial laser diode controller

In this paper, we perform the experimental characterization of a distributed Raman amplifier (DRA) employing time division multiplexed (TDM) pumping. We measure the response of a commercially available laser diode controller (LDC) to typical pump modulation parameters used in a TDM pumping scheme. These parameters are then optimized for the restricted response of the LDC. Using the optimal parameters, we present the noise characterization of an 8-channel wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) transmission system, counter-pumped using four pulsed semiconductor laser diodes that are time division multiplexed. Specifically, we show that for similar gain profiles and a typical 75-km single mode fiber span, the effective noise figure variation of the WDM channels is lesser by 0.8 and 0.5 dB for TDM-pumped DRA compared with continuous-wave-pumped DRA for 5 and 9 dB on-off gain, respectively.