OPTICAL AMPLIFER

Submitted by: ABINASH NAYAK 7th sem (0701224195) BRANCH- EEE

Optical amplifiers

Boosting of an optical signal without any conversion of the light into an electrical signal.

Contents

Mechanism Basic Operation Classification SOA EDFA SOA types EDFA Mechanism and architecture Amplified spontaneous emission

Mechanism
All optical amplifiers increase the power level of incident light through a stimulated emission process. The mechanism to create the population inversion ,that is needed for stimulated emission to occur is the same as used in LASER Diodes .Here the device absorbs energy supplied from an external source called PUMP. Pumps supply energy to electrons in active medium which raises them to higher energy level to produce a population inversion.

Basic operation of Optical Amplifier

Fiber to amplifier couplers

Active medium
Optical Input

Signal

Amplified Optical output

Pump Source

Basic Operation of a Generic Optical Amplifier

Optical amplifier functions

1. In-line amplifier 2. Power booster 3. Detector preamplifier

Optical amplifiers - classification

Semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA) Erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA), also PDFFA(1300 nm band)

Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers (SOAs)

Two Types: 1. Fabry-Perot Amplifier (FPA) Two cleaved facets of a semiconductor crystals act as partially reflective end mirrors that form a Fabry-Perot cavity. 2. Traveling Wave Amplifier (TWA) Structure is same as that of FPA except that the end facets are either anti-reflection coated or cleaved at an angle, so that internal reflection does not take place.

SOAs Types
Bulk Semiconductor Injection Current Active Region

Optical input signal L

Optical output signal

Cleaved facet Cleaved facet

a) Fabry-Perot Amplifier
Injection Current Bulk Semiconductor Optical input signal
L

Optical output signal

b) Travelling wave Amplifier

SOA advantages

a It works in both 1300nm and 1500nm low attenuation window. It can be easily integrated on the same substrate as other optical devices and circuits .

SOAs advantages over DFAs

Consume less power Have fewer components and More compact More rapid gain response (order of 1ps to 0.1 ns)

Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifiers (EDFA)

It is mostly used for long haul telecommunication applications.

The operation of EDFA is limited to 1530-1560 nm region.

In some cases Yb is added to increase the pumping efficiency and amplifier gain.

Amplification Mechanism
Energy Pump Band 1 2 Fast nonradiative decay 4 3 transition Pump 5 Spontaneous Emission 6 absorption 7 Stimulated Decay to lower state Metastable Band

Pump transition

980 nm
photon

1480 nm
photon

Stimulated

1550 nm

1550 nm

1550 nm photons

Ground-state band

emission

Application

SOA application

Cable TV Networks Switches Filter Modulator Wavelength converters WDM point to point links

EDFA Application

Conclusion
By the use of optical amplifier need of repeaters is minimized in optical signal amplification. Hence no need of optical to electrical and again electrical to optical conversion. EDFA are mainly advantageous over SOA because they do not have the demerit of crosstalk.

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