KIoT

SECE

Chapter Three
Optical Amplifiers and Optical Networks
Lecture # 3

Jemal H. ( Msc )
KIoT, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
jjemalassen@gmail.com

January, 2023

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 Chapter Contents

• Introduction
• Optical Amplifiers
• Types of Optical Amplifiers
• Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers
• Raman Optical Amplifiers
• Semiconductor Amplifier
• Optical Networks
• Synchronous Optical Network ( SONET )
• SONET Layers and frames

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 Introduction

• In long distance communications, whether going through wire, fibre or wave,

the signal carrying the information experience:
– Power loss
– Pulse broadening ……… which requires amplification and signal reshaping.
• In fibre optics communications, these can be done in two ways:
– Opto-electronic conversion
– All optical
• Semiconductor devices can convert an optical signal into an electrical signal, amplify it
and reconvert the signal back to an optical signal. However, this procedure has several
disadvantages:
• Costly and Require a large number over long distances.
• Noise is introduced after each conversion in analog signals ( cant be reconstructed)
• Restriction on bandwidth, wavelengths and type of optical signals being used, due to
the electronics
• So by amplifying signal in the optical domain many of these disadvantages would disappear.

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 Optical amplifiers

• An optical amplifier is a device which amplifies the optical signal directly without
ever changing it to electricity.
• It increases the power level of incident light through stimulated emission.
• The electrons in active medium absorbs energy from an external energy source
through a pump.
– Increase data transmission distance, How did it ?
• by increasing optical power coupled to transmission fiber (power booster)
• by compensating optical fiber losses (in-line amplifier)
• by improving receiver sensitivity (optical preamplifier)
Pumping of energy
Optical input
Amplification
medium
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8         

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 Cont…

• In order to transmit signals over long distances (>100 km) it is necessary to

compensate for attenuation losses within the fiber.
• Initially this was accomplished with an optoelectronic module consisting of
an optical receiver, a regeneration and equalization system, and an optical
transmitter to send the data.
• The general block diagram for an optical amplifier is shown below.

Weak signal Amplified signal

Pin Optical Amplifier Pout
ASE (G) ASE

Directly amplify weak optical signal

Pump Source Amplify all wavelengths in their range
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 Why we need optical amplifiers

• Typical fiber loss around 1.5 µm is ~ 0.2 dB/km and After traveling ~100 km,
signals are attenuated by ~20 dB.
• They need to be amplified or signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) of detected signals is
too low and bit error rate (BER) becomes too high.
• An OE to EO conversions requires costly , high‐ speed electronics (>10 GHz).
• Best way to amplify is optically using fiberamplifier.
Reasons to use the optical amplifiers:
• Reliability (long life and stable operation)
• Flexibility (easy maintenance)
• Easily incorporated in WDM
• Medium cost and lowest loss
• Most efficient and most stable
• Minimize the effect of dispersion and attenuation
• Therefore gives improved performance for long haul communication.
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 Optical Amplification - Spectral Characteristics

(unamplified signal)

(amplified signal)
Power
Power
Single channel
ASE

Wavelength Wavelength
(unamplified signal)

(amplified signal)
Power

WDM channels

Power
ASE

Wavelength Wavelength

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 Optical Amplifier Characteristics

An optical amplifier is characterized by:

• Gain : ratio of output power to input power (in dB)

• Gain efficiency : gain as a function of input power (dB/mW)
• Gain bandwidth : range of wavelengths over which the amplifier is effective
:In a network, the gain bandwidth limits the number of
wavelengths available for a given channel spacing.

• Gain saturation : Is the value of output power at which the output

power no longer increases with an increase in the input power.
maximum output power, beyond which no amplification is reached

• Noise : undesired signal due to physical processing in amplifier

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 Optical Amplifier - Optical Gain (G)

• G = S Output / S Input (No noise)

• Input signal dependent:
– Operating point (saturation) of EDFA strongly depends on
power and wavelength of incoming signal

Gain (dB)
• Gain ↓ as the input power ↑ 40
Pin Gain Pout P Input: -30 dBm

-20 dBm 30 dB +10 dBm 30 -20 dBm

-10 dBm 25 dB +15 dBm -10 dBm
20
Note, Pin changes by a factor of ten -5 dBm

then Pout changes only by a factor of 10

three in this power range. 1520 1540 1560 1580

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 Main function of Optical Amplifiers

• An optical amplifier has three main function and application, based on

position of amplifier:
Fiber lines

Optical Optical
Tx Rx
a). In‐line amplifier

Optical Optical
Tx Rx

b). Pre-amplifier

Optical Optical
Tx Long fiber link Rx

c). Power ( booster) amplifier

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 Cont…

⚫ Inline amplifier
• To increase transmission link b/n Tx and Rx
• Compensate the fiber attenuation, needed in long‐haul networks
• Installed every 30 to 70 km along a link
• Good noise figure, medium output power
• Used as front-end amplifiers for an optical receiver where weak signals
are amplified before photo-detection.
⚫ Power ( boost) amplifier
• Amplifier device put after the transmitter to boost up the transmitted power.
• Increases the transmission distance
• Power boosters allows repeater less transmission
• Up to +17 dBm power, amplifies transmitter output
• Also used in cable TV systems before a star coupler
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 Cont…

⚫ Pre-amplifier
• Used in front end preamplifier for an optical receiver.
• Weak optical signal is amplified before photo detection in front of
receiver.
• Bi-directional amplifiers, amplifier in both ways.
• OA provides larger gain, high sensitivity, broader bandwidth.
• A weak optical signal is usually amplified before it enters the receiver.
• Noise is a crucial factor

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 Types of Optical Amplifiers

• There are three main types of fiber amplifiers in commercial use. These are:
i. Rare-Earth Doped Fiber Amplifiers

 Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier (EDFA)

ii. Raman Amplifiers

iii. Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers (SOAs)

• All amplifiers increases power level of incident light through stimulated

emission or optical power transfer.

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 Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier (EDFA)

• Erbium is a rare-earth element which has some interesting properties for

fiber optics communications.
• EDFA is an optical fiber doped with erbium and an attractive amplifier type in
optical communications systems.
• Works best in the range 1530 to 1565 nm and Gain up to 30 dB.
• When Erbium is lined in a fiber optic material such as glass, and light
is pumped through it the result is an “Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier”
• These amplifiers provide a large gain, which occurs when the fiber is
“pumped” by an additional light input at wavelengths shorter than
1.55mm
• EDFAs allow optical signals to be transmitted over long distances
communication without the need for signal regeneration

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 Cont…

• An erbium-doped fiber amplifier consists of:

– A length of silica fiber, whose core is doped with an erbium ion
– A pump laser of 980 nm or 1480 nm
– Wavelength multiplexers or couplers/isolators
• Combination of several factors has made EDFA an attractive choice:
– Availability of compact and reliable high-power semiconductor pump
lasers
– It is an all fiber device, easy to couple light in and out of fiber
– Simplicity of device
– It introduces no crosstalk when amplifying WDM signals
– EDFA is a fiber segment, a few meters long, heavily doped with erbium
– Energy is provided by a pump laser beam

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 Cont…

• Optical isolators avoids the back propagation of amplified signal.

• Optical pumping : an external current (photon) is used to push the electrons
from lower to higher energy level.

Pump
(980 or 1480 nm at 3 W)
EDFA
Weak signal in WDM Amplified signal out

Fiber Fiber Fiber

Isolator

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 EDFA gain

• The purpose of the EDFA is to provide gain, which is defined as the ratio of the
output signal power to the input signal power. Gain is found from the following
formula
Gain = 10 Log (G)
where, Pout (s )  Pase
G G: Linear gain
Pin (s )
: Amplifier signal wavelength (nm)
Pin ( ) : Level of input signal (W)
Pout ( ) : Level of output signal (W)
Pase : ASE level (W)
• When these power levels are measured on a logarithmic scale, with units of dBm
(decibels relative to 1 milliwatt), the gain is calculated as the difference between the
two signals.

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 Cont…

• When the input signal power is very large so that Ps,in >> (λs /λs) Pp,in,
then the maximum amplifier gain is unity.

• To achieve a specific maximum gain G, the input signal power cannot exceed a
value given by

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 EDFA Noise Figure

• The EDFA noise figure is defined as the ratio of the input signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)
to the output SNR. SNR input
NF 
SNR output

• The experimental determination of the noise figure is given by:

PASE
NF 
h . .G . B
where PASE is the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) power, G is the amplifier gain, h is the
Planck constant, v is the optical frequency and B is the optical bandwidth
• The noise figure equation contains two terms that contribute to noise at the
electrical output of a photodetector used to detect the optical signal.
• The first term is due to mixing, at the photodetector, of the signal and the
amplified spontaneous emission at the same wavelength.
• The second term represents the level dependent shot noise produced at the
photodetector.

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 Example 3.1

• Assume we have an EDFA power amplifier pumping at 980 nm, that

produces Ps,out=27 dBm for an input level of 2 dBm at 1542 nm.
(a)Find the amplifier gain.
(b)What is the minimum pump power required

a) at 27 dB =501mW and 2dB = 1.6mW

• The gain is P s , out  501   10 log 313  25 dB

G  G  10 log  
P s , in  1 . 6 
P s , out  p p p , in
b) The minimum pump is given by G   1
P s , in  s p s , in
980 p p , in
313  1  with a 1.6mW input signal the pump power needed is
1542 p s , in
312 (1542 )
p p, in  (1 . 6 mW )  785 mW
980
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 Advantages of EDFA

• High power transfer efficiency from pump to signal power (>50%).

• Wide spectral band amplification with relatively flat flat gain (>20
dB) gain useful for WDM applications,
• Large dynamic range
• Suitable for long distance communication
• Low noise figure.
• Polarization independent
• Gain-time constant long (>100 msec) to overcome patterning effects and
inter-modulation distortions (low noise).

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 Disadvantages of EDFA

• Relatively large devices (km lengths of fiber) – not easily integrated with
other devices.
• ASE – amplified spontaneous emission. There is always some output even
with no signal input due to some excitation of ions in the fiber –
spontaneous noise.
• Cross-talk effects.
• Gain saturation effects.

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 Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers

• SOAs are essentially laser diodes, without end mirrors, which have fiber
attached to both ends.
• They amplify any optical signal that comes from either fiber and transmit an
amplified version of the signal out of the second fiber.
• SOAs are typically constructed in a small package, and they work for 1310
nm and 1550 nm systems.
• In addition, they transmit bidirectionally, making the reduced size of the
device an advantage over regenerators of EDFAs.
• It consists of an active medium
(p-n junction) in the form of Semiconductor laser chip
waveguide - usually made of
Tapered fiber 1 Anti-reflection
InGaAs or InGaAsP coating
• Energy is provided by injecting
Waveguide
electric current over the junction
• The figure illustrates the basics of a Semiconductor optical amplifier. Tapered fiber

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 Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers (SOAs)

• SOAs are small, compact and can be integrated with other

semiconductor and optical components
• They have large bandwidth and relatively high gain (20 dB)
• Saturation power in the range of 5-10 dBm
• SOAs are polarization dependent and thus require a polarization maintaining
fiber
• Because of nonlinear phenomena SOAs have a high noise figure and high
cross-talk level.
• When current is applied
across the p-n junction the
process causes the photons
to replicate producing
signal gain.

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 Cont…

• A major advantage of SOAs is that they can be integrated with other

components on a single planar substrate.
• Posses high gain response.
• Can be used both for switching and signal processing functions in optical
network.
• Limitations is the gain changes at particular wavelength due to
rapid change in carrier response.
• Rapid gain response leads to crosstalk while amplification.
• This latter characteristic makes them unusable as amplifiers in WDM
systems

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 Cont…

• The SOA has an active region of length L, width w, and height d. The end
facets have reflectivities R1 and R2.
• However, in contrast to a semiconductor laser diode in which the
reflectivities are around 0.3, R1 and R2 for an SOA are dramatically lower
in order for the optical signal to pass through the amplification cavity only
once W → width
d → thickness
The photon density is Ps → power
hv→ photon energy
• The pumping rate for the SOA is Vg→ group velocity
J(t) I  → Confinement factor
R p (t)   → Time constant
qd qdwL
a → Gain coefficient
 J n  →Threshold density
g o   a  r   th 
• Zero signal gain  qd r  L → Amplifier length
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 Example 3.2

• Consider an InGaAsP SOA with w = 5 μm and d = 0.5 μm. Given that

Vg = 2 × 108 m/s, if a 1.0 μW optical signal at 1550 nm enters the
device, what is the photon density?

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 Raman optical amplifiers

• Raman amplifier is based on non linear effect called Stimulated Raman

Scattering (SRS) which occur at higher optical powers.
• They differ in principle from EDFAs in that they utilize (SRS) to create an
optical gain.
• The Raman optical amplifiers have a wide gain bandwidth (up to 10 nm).
• They can use any installed transmission optical fiber. Consequently, they
reduce the effective span loss to improve noise performance by boosting the
optical signal in transit.
• In optical systems, as light traveled down the fiber, energy would be
"robbed" from the shorter wavelength channels, boosting the amplitude of
the longer wavelength channels.
• They can be combined with EDFAs to expand optical gain flattened
bandwidth.

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 Raman optical amplifiers

• The gain mechanism in Raman amplifier is achieved through either lumped or

distributed amplifiers.
• Raman pumping takes place backwards over the fiber (Backward Pumping)
• Gain is a maximum close to the receiver and decreases in the transmitter.
• To overcome the attenuation at receiver end of fiber we introduce a high energy
pump signal
• Useful for compensating the losses.

Where LG → Raman gain length

gRP
LG  gR → Raman gain coefficient
A eff
Aeff → Effective are of transmission fiber

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 Advantages and Disadvantages of Raman Amplification

Advantages
• Variable wavelength amplification possible (pump frequency has
to be adjusted)
• Compatible with installed SM fiber
• Can be used to "extend" EDFAs
• Very broadband operation may be possible
Disadvantages
• High pump power requirements, high pump power lasers have only
recently arrived
• Sophisticated gain control needed (laser freq. control circuitry
required)
• Noise is also an issue
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 Comparison of EDFA, Raman & SOA Amplifiers

• The performance of the three amplifiers are summarized in the following table

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 Why Optical Networks ?

• The Dramatic changes in the telecommunication industry.

• Need for more capacity in the network.
• Tremendous growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web
in terms of
• number of users & the amount of time
• bandwidth taken by each user – internet traffic growing rapidly.
• Businesses rely on high speed networks.
• Need for more bandwidth.
• Deregulation of the telephone industry.
• Need of providing quality of service(QoS) to carry performance
sensitive applications ( real-time voice, video etc.)

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 Optical Networks

• An Optical Network is a telecommunication network

• with transmission links that are optical fibers and
• with an architecture that use designed to exploit the unique features if
fibers.
• High performance light-wave network –involve complex combination both
optical and electronic devices.
• Low-cost broadband services – Internet based applications continues to
increase.
• The glue that holds the purely optical network together consists of :
• optical network nodes (ONN) connecting the fibers within the network
• network access stations (NAS) interfacing user terminals and other non-
optical end systems to the network
• Critical role :
• Reducing communications costs
• Promoting competition among carriers & service providers
• Increasing the demand for new services
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 Cont…

• Optical Networks are used to connect a large number of users

• They may include: LAN, MAN, WAN depending on the area to cover.

• LAN: a few km, design using star topology

• MAN: a few hundred Km, ring topology
• WAN: several hundred to thousands km.
• Several LANs are connected to a MAN by using passive wavelength
routing, several MANs are connected to a WAN whose nodes are
interconnected using mesh topology.
• In optical networks, nodes are connected through point-to- point WDM
links; optical cross-connect (OXC) switches are used.
• In case of electronic processing, the maximum speed achievable is
10Gb/s, But, all-optical signal processing supports more than 10Gb/s.

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 Generations of Optical Networks

• First Generation:
• Optics used for transmission & provide capacity
• Switching & other intelligent network functions were handled by
electronics
• SONET (synchronous optical network)
• SDH ( synchronous digital hierarchy)
• Second Generation:
• have routing ,switching and intelligence in the optical layer
• use multiplexing techniques – provide the capacity needed

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 Synchronous Optical Network ( SONET )

• SONET is a wide area network (WAN) that is used as a transport network

to carry loads from other WANs.
• Is a standardized digital communication protocol which is used to transmit
large data in telecom network using synchronous TDM multiplexing.
• Architecture of a SONET system consists of signals, devices, and
connections.
• Signals • Connections
 Synchronous Transport Signals (STS)  Section
 Optical Carriers (OCs)  Line
 Synchronous Transport Module (STM)  Path
• SONET Devcies
 STS Mux/Demux
 Regenerators
 Add-Drop Multiplexer and Terminals

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 SONET Layers

• The SONET standard includes four layers: path, line, section, and photonic
• Path layer is responsible for the movement of a signal from its optical source
to its optical destination.
• Line layers is for the movement of a signal across a physical line.
• Section layer is for the movement of a signal across a physical section,
handling framing, scrambling, and error control.
• Photonic layer corresponds to the physical layer of OSI model.

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 Device-Layer Relationship in SONET

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 SONET Signals

• The electrical side of the SONET signal is synchronous transport signal (STS).
• The electrical side of the SDH is synchronous transport module (STM).
• The optical side of a SONET/SDH signal is known as the optical carrier (OC).

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 Cont…

• The basic STS is STS-1, all others are multiples of it - STS-N

• The (optical) physical layer signal corresponding to an STS-N is an OC-N

• The STS-3 rate is exactly three times the STS-l rate; and the STS-9 rate is
exactly one-half of the STS-18 rate.

• These relationships mean that 18 STS-l channels can be multiplexed into one
STS-18, six STS-3 channels can be multiplexed into one STS-18, and so on.

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 SONET Devices

• SONET transmission relies on four basic devices:

• STS multiplexers/demultiplexers, regenerators, add/drop multiplexers
and terminals

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 SONET Devices

• STS multiplexers/demultiplexers provides the interface between an electrical

tributary network and the optical network.
• An STS multiplexer multiplexes signals from multiple electrical sources and
creates the corresponding OC signal and an STS demultiplexer demultiplexes
an optical OC signal into corresponding electric signals.
Regenerator:
• Regenerators extend the length of the links. A regenerator is a repeater that
takes a received optical signal (OC-n), demodulates it into the corresponding
electric signal (STS- n), regenerates the electric signal, and finally modulates the
electric signal into its correspondent OC-n signal.
• Add/drop multiplexers: allow insertion and extraction of signals in an STS. An
add/drop multiplexer can add an electrical signals into a given path or can remove a
desired signal from a path.
Terminals
• A terminal is a device that uses the services of a SONET network. For example, in
the Internet, a terminal can be a router that needs to send packets to another router

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 SONET Frames

• Each synchronous transfer signal STS-n is composed of 8000 frames. Each

frame is a two-dimensional matrix of bytes with 9 rows by 90 × n columns
• One of the interesting points about SONET is that each STS-n signal is
transmitted at a fixed rate of 8000 frames per second. This is the rate at which
voice is digitized.
• For each frame the bytes are transmitted from the left to the right, top to the
bottom and for each byte, the bits are transmitted from the most significant
to the least significant (left to right).

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 STS-1 frame

• Each STS-1 frame is 90 columns * 9 rows = 810 bytes

• There are 8000 STS-1 frames per second so each byte represents 64 kbps
(each column is 576 kbps)
• Thus the basic STS-1 rate is 51.840 Mbps

framing
9 rows

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 Examples

1. Find the data rate of an STS-1 signal.

• STS-1, like other STS signals, sends 8000 frames per second. Each STS-1
frame is made of 9 by (1 × 90) bytes. Each byte is made of 8 bits.
• The data rate is

2. What is the duration of an STS-1 frame? STS-3 frame? STS-n frame?

• In SONET, 8000 frames are sent per second. This means that the duration
of an STS-1, STS-3, or STS-n frame is the same and equal to 1/8000 s, or
125 μs.
• In SONET, the duration of any frame is 125 μs.

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 End of Slide
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