WIDEBAND OPTICAL AMPLIFIERS

RAMAN AMPLIFIERS

OFC SEMINAR
9 December 2010
 Optical Amplifiers

 Wideband Optical Amplifiers

 Raman Amplifiers

 Raman Amplifiers v/s EDFAs

 OPTICAL AMPLIFIERS

To amplify an optical signal with a conventional

repeater, one performs

• photon to electron conversion

• electrical amplification
• Pulse shaping, retiming
• electron to photon conversion

An optical amplifier is a device which amplifies the

optical signal directly without ever changing it to
electricity. The light itself is amplified.
optical amplifiers
Semiconductor
Doped fiber
amplifiers

optical amplifiers
Semiconductor
Doped fiber
amplifiers

Optical Amplifiers
Optical Amplifiers

Raman Amplifiers
 WIDEBAND OPTICAL AMPLIFIERS
• Why ?
The ever growing demand for more bandwidth.
• What ?
Optical amplifiers that operate over several wavelength
bands to handle a large number of WDM channels
simultaneously.
For example, a combination of two amplifier types can provide
effective amplification in both the C- and L- bands or in the
S- and C- bands.

Optical Fiber

Gain Region
 OPTICAL AMPLIFIERS IN PARALLEL

C- Band
GFF Amplified
Input EDFAC
C/ L Output
C/ L Band
Band
demux
mux
L- Band
GFF
EDFAC

• A wideband demultiplexer splits the incoming

signal spectrum into two wavelength bands.

• The two bands then pass through corresponding

optical amplifiers after which a wideband multiplexer
recombines the two spectral bands.
• Parallel setup requires a guard band spanning
several nanometers between the two spectral
regions. This guard band prevents amplification
overlap between the different paths and also
prevents interference of noise.

Limitations:
• Unusable wavelength band.
• Two WDM devices needed before and after
each amplifier adds to insertion loss.
 OPTICAL AMPLIFIERS IN SERIES
 C  L
 I Ban Ba  G  Am
n  GF
d nd FF plif
p F1
 ED  ED 2 ied
u FA FA Ou
• tThe series configuration is known as a seamless tpu
wideband optical amplifier , since it does not require t
splitting the signals into separate paths.

• These amplifiers can be constructed either from a

concatenation of two or more doped-fiber amplifiers or
from a combination of a fiber amplifier and a Raman
amplifier.
 RAMAN AMPLIFIERS

• Based on a nonlinear effect called stimulated

Raman scattering, which occurs in fibers at
high optical powers.

RAMAN
Raman
amp
Input Output
Channels Channels
 STIMULATED RAMAN SCATTERING
• Due to the interaction between light waves and the
vibrational modes of silica molecules.
• If a photon is incident on a molecule, the molecule will
first absorb the photon of a particular energy and then
releases another photon at a lower energy that is, at a
longer wavelength than that of the absorbed photon.
• The energy difference between the absorbed and the
released photons is transformed into a phonon, which is a
vibrational mode of the material.
• The modified photon is called a Stokes photon.
• The shift to a particular longer wavelength is referred to as
the Stokes shift for that wavelength.
• This process generates scattered light at a wavelength longer
than that of the incident light. If another signal is present at
this longer wavelength, the SRS light will amplify it and the
pump wavelength signal will decrease in power.
Typical Raman Gain Curve versus Wavelength
• Hence, SRS can severely limit the performance of a
multichannel by transferring energy from short wavelength
channels to neighboring higher wavelength channels.

• Powers in WDM channels separated by up to 16THz

( 125nm) can be coupled through the SRS effect.

• Because the
gain band moves
with the pump
wavelength, new
bands and broad
bands can be
amplified.
• Pump intensities can be adjusted for
gain flatness.

Raman gain (pump wavelength = 1455nm)

Gain
(dB)
 TYPES OF RAMAN AMPLIFIER

• In the Lumped Raman amplifier configuration , a

spool of about 80m of small core fiber along with
appropriate pump lasers is inserted into the
transmission path as a distinct packaged unit.

• For the distributed Raman amplifier application, optical

power from one or more Raman pump lasers is inserted
into the end of the transmission fiber toward the
transmitting end. This process converts the final 20-
40km of the transmission fiber into a pre-amplifier.
 Raman Amplifiers v/s Doped Fiber
Amplifiers
• EDFAs use~10% of total fiber bandwidth while
Raman amplification allows ~ 30% of fiber
bandwidth to be used

• Whereas an EDFA requires a specially

constructed optical fiber for its operation, a
Raman amplifier makes use of the standard
transmission fiber itself as the amplification
medium.
Other differences….
Gracias