<title>Space radiation effects on erbium-doped fibers</title>

Abstract

The effect of (gamma) and proton radiation on the optical attenuations at 980, 1300, and 1550 nm has been measured in two Lucent Technologies erbium-doped fibers (EDFs) designed for use in amplifiers pumped at 980 nm. Growth of the induced loss at the 3 wavelengths followed a power law of dose with an exponent of approximately 0.8 independent of fiber, radiation type or dose rate. The incremental attenuation was found to have only a weak dependence on dose rate. The recovery could be described by the sum of 3 exponential decay terms, but simple color center models overestimated the effect of dose rate.