Reconfigurable Modal Gain Control of a Few-Mode EDFA Supporting Six Spatial Modes

Author

Yongmin Jung ; Qiongyue Kang ; Sahu, Jayanta Kumar ; Corbett, Brian ; O´Callagham, James ; Poletti, Francesco ; Alam, Shaif-Ul ; Richardson, David J.

Author_Institution

Optoelectron. Res. Centre, Univ. of Southampton, Southampton, UK

Volume

26

Issue

11

fYear

2014

fDate

1-Jun-14

Firstpage

1100

Lastpage

1103

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate an inline few-mode erbium doped fiber amplifier supporting six spatial modes with reconfigurable differential gain control and excellent gain flatness obtained through mode-selective bidirectional pumping of a custom fiber with a radially profiled erbium dopant distribution. A signal gain of >20 dB was obtained for all the guided modes with a differential modal gain <;2 dB and good gain flatness across the C-band.

Keywords

erbium; gain control; laser beams; laser modes; optical fibre amplifiers; optical pumping; few-mode EDFA; gain flatness; inline few-mode erbium doped fiber amplifier; mode-selective bidirectional pumping; radially profiled erbium dopant distribution; reconfigurable differential gain control; reconfigurable modal gain control; spatial modes; Bidirectional control; Erbium; Gain; Multiplexing; Optical fiber amplifiers; Optimized production technology; Mode division multiplexing (MDM); erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA); optical fiber communication;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2014.2315500

Filename

6782743