Dynamic power-equalized EDFA module based on strain tunable fiber Bragg gratings

Abstract

An adaptive power-equalized erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) module is proposed and experimentally demonstrated by using strain tunable fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs). In a demonstration for a five-channel wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) system, the EDFA module can effectively reduce the power variation from 11 dB to 0.3 dB. Measured power penalty for 2.5-Gb/s data is less than 0.5 and 1.1 dB for 5 and 17 dB of signal attenuation by tunable FBGs, respectively. The power-equalized EDFA module can find wide applications in WDM lightwave transmission systems.