Amplifying four-wavelength combiner, based on erbium/ytterbium-doped waveguide amplifiers and integrated splitters

Abstract

We report the successful system demonstration of a four-wavelength integrated-optics amplifying combiner. The arrangement consists of an all-connectorized 4/spl times/1 glass splitter followed by a 4.5-cm-long Er/Yb-doped waveguide amplifier. When injecting 120 mW of 975-nm laser diode pump, we record, in the amplifying section, 11.6 dB of net gain in the single pass configuration and 23 dB in the double pass as well as a noise figure of 4.5 dB. These results show the potentiality of ion-exchange technology for the fabrication of lossless telecommunication devices.