Fiber Optic Communication and

Networks (ECE4005)
Dr. Sangeetha R.G
Associate Professor
School of Electronics Engineering
(SENSE)

© Dr. Sangeetha R.G 1

Module :4 Optical Amplifiers
Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers, Raman Amplifiers, Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers

© Dr. Sangeetha R.G 2

 Optical Amplifiers
• In an optical communication system, the optical signals from the
transmitter are attenuated by the optical fiber as they propagate
through it.
• Other optical components, such as multiplexers and couplers, also
add loss.
• After some distance, the cumulative loss of signal strength causes
the signal to become too weak to be detected.
• Before this happens, the signal strength has to be restored. Prior to
the advent of optical amplifiers over the last decade, the only
option was to regenerate the signal, that is, receive the signal and
retransmit it. This process is accomplished by regenerators.
• A regenerator converts the optical signal to an electrical signal,
cleans it up, and converts it back into an optical signal for onward
transmission.

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 Repeaters Vs Regenerators
• On one hand, regenerators are specific to the bit rate and
modulation format used by the communication system.
• On the other hand, optical amplifiers are insensitive to the bit rate
or signal formats.
• Thus a system using optical amplifiers can be more easily upgraded,
for example, to a higher bit rate, without replacing the amplifiers. In
contrast, in a system using regenerators, such an upgrade would
require all the regenerators to be replaced.
• Furthermore, optical amplifiers have fairly large gain bandwidths,
and as a consequence, a single amplifier can simultaneously
amplify several WDM signals.
• In contrast, we would need a regenerator for each wavelength.
Thus optical amplifiers have become essential components in high-
performance optical communication systems.

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• Amplifiers, are not perfect devices.
• They introduce additional noise, and this noise accumulates
as the signal passes through multiple amplifiers along its
path due to the analog nature of the amplifier.
• The spectral shape of the gain, the output power, and the
transient behaviour of the amplifier are also important
considerations for system applications.
• Ideally, we would like to have a sufficiently high output
power to meet the needs of the network application.
• We would also like the gain to be flat over the operating
wavelength range and to be insensitive to variations in
input power of the signal

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 Traditional Optical
Communication System
Loss compensation: Repeaters at every 20-50 km
* Applications of Optical Amplifier
(a) In-line Amplifier
- use to compensate for transmission loss and increase the
distance between regenerative repeaters.
(b) Preamplifier
- used as a front-end preamplifier for an optical receiver.
(c) Power Amplifier
- to boost transmitted power and increase the transmission
distance
- as booster of signal level in the local area network

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Amplifier Types and Applications
Amplifiers are used to overcome fiber
loss

They are used in 4 basic applications:

In-line amplifiers for periodic power

boosting

Power Amplifier to increase the

power to greater levels than possible
from the source

Pre-amplifier to increase the received

power sensitivity

Distribution loss compensation in

local area or cable networks
 Classification
• semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA)
• Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA)
• Raman amplifiers (RA)

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 Key Phenomenon
stimulated emission
• stimulated emission of radiation by atoms in the presence of an
electromagnetic field.
• consider an atom and two of its energy levels, E1 and E2, with E2 >
E1.
• An electromagnetic field whose frequency satisfies Energy= E2 − E1
induces transitions of atoms between the energy levels E1 and E2.
• E1 →E2 and E2 → E1 is possible. E1 →E2 transitions are accompanied by
absorption of photons from the incident electromagnetic field. E2 → E1
transitions are accompanied by the emission of photons of energy , the
same energy as that of the incident photons.
• Increase in the number of photons of energy and an amplification
of the signal.

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• It follows from the theory of quantum mechanics that the rate of the E1 → E2
transitions per atom equals the rate of the E2 → E1 transitions per atom. Let this
common rate be denoted by r.
• If the populations (number of atoms) in the energy levels E1 and E2 are N1 and N2,
respectively, we have a net increase in power (energy per unit time) of (N2 −N1)
• Clearly, for amplification to occur, this must be positive, that is, N2 > N1. This
condition is known as population inversion.
• The reason for this term is that, at thermal equilibrium, lower energy levels are
more highly populated, that is, N2 < N1.
• Therefore, at thermal equilibrium, we have only absorption of the input signal. In
order for amplification to occur, we must invert the relationship between the
populations of levels E1 and E2 that prevails under thermal equilibrium.
• Population inversion can be achieved by supplying additional energy in a suitable
form to pump the electrons to the higher energy level. This additional energy can
be in optical or electrical form

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 Spontaneous emission
• Independent of any external radiation that may be present,
atoms in energy level E2 transit to the lower energy level E1,
emitting a photon of energy .
• The spontaneous emission rate per atom from level E2 to
level E1 is a characteristic of the system, and its reciprocal,
denoted by τ21,is called the spontaneous emission lifetime.
• Thus, if there are N2 atoms in level E2, the rate of
spontaneous emission is N2/τ21, and the spontaneous
emission power is EN2/τ21. The amplifier treats
• spontaneous emission radiation as another electromagnetic
field at the frequency, and the spontaneous emission also gets
amplified, in addition to the incident optical signal.
• This amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) appears as noise at
the output of the amplifier. 12
Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (SOA)
• Semiconductor optical amplifiers are similar in construction to
semiconductor lasers. They consist of a gain (active) section and a
passive section constructed of a semiconductor material such as
indium phosphide. The main difference is that SOAs are made
with layers of antireflection coatings to prevent light from
reflecting back into the circuit.
• Optical gain occurs as excited electrons in the semiconductor
material are stimulated by incoming light signals; when current is
applied across the p-n junction the process causes the photons to
replicate, producing signal gain. The gain medium can be either a
bulk or a multiple-quantum-well active layer.
Semiconductor optical amplifiers, like their semiconductor-laser,
consist of gain and passive regions. Layers of antireflective coatings
prevent light from reflecting back into the circuit while the incoming
signal stimulates electrons in the gain region
 SOA
• Types:
– Resonant , Febry Perot amplifier (partially
reflective end mirrors, requires very carefull
temperature and injection current)
– No-resonant, Traveling wave amplifier (TWA) (The
end facets are anti-reflection coating or cleaved at
an angle so no internal reflection)
– External pumping

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Optical confinement factor, a= gain constant

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 EDFA
• It consists of a length of silica fiber whose core is doped with ionized
atoms (ions), Er3+
• This fiber is pumped using a pump signal from a laser, typically at a
wavelength of 980 nm or 1480 nm.
• In order to combine the output of the pump laser with the input signal,
the doped fiber is preceded by a wavelength-selective coupler.
• EDFA the amplifier of choice in today’s optical communication systems:
(1) the availability of compact and reliable high-power semiconductor
pump lasers
(2) the fact that it is an all-fiber device making it polarization independent
and easy to couple light in and out of it
(3) the simplicity of the device
(4) the fact that it introduces no crosstalk when amplifying WDM signals

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• Er ions introduced in si –starksplitting
• Macroscopically, that is, when viewed
as a collection of ions, this has the effect
of spreading each discrete energy level
of an erbium ion into a continuous energy band.
• Recall 2 energy level, only an optical signal at the frequency fc satisfying
hfc = E2 −E1 could be amplified
• Pumping at 980nm

τ21,

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 Amplification Process of EDFA
N3 N3
Radiationless
Decay
980 nm N2 N2

Pump
N1 N1

Optical Pumping to Higher Energy levels Rapid Relaxation to "metastable" State

N3

~1550 nm

~1550 nm N2

Signal
N1
Output
Stimulated Emission and Amplification
Erbium energy-level diagram

τ32,
 EDFA Co-Directional Pumping
configurations

Counter Directional

Dual Pumping
Amplified Spontaneous Emission (ASE) Noise
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Noise components

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Raman and Brillouin fiber amplifier
• Non-linear effects within the fiber may be
provided to obtain optical amplification
• Stimulated scattering, stimulated brillouin
scattering or four photon mixing, giving gain by
injecting a high power laser beam into undoped
amplifier
• Raman amplifier exhibits self phase matching
between pump and signal together-WDM
systems
• Simultaneous amplification using 60mW pump
power, gain-BW is 20-30nm
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Observations about Raman amplifiers
• Gain is a function of fiber length for standard
10µm core single mode fiber with input power
1.6W

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• Raman gain becomes larger as the fiber length
increases around 50km
• Raman gain can be obtained using low loss
fibers
• Raman gain increased as fiber core diameter
decreased
• Pump power required for amplification is high

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