Double-pass erbium-doped zirconia fiber amplifier for wide-band and flat-gain operations

• Main Authors: Harun, Sulaiman Wadi, Paul, Mukul Chandra, Huri, N.A.D., Hamzah, Azura, Das, Shyamsundar P., Pal, Mrinmay, Bhadra, Shyamal Kumar, Ahmad, Harith, Yoo, Seong Woo, Kalita, Mridu P., Boyland, Alexander J., Sahu, Jayanta Kumar S.
• Format: Article
• Published: Elsevier 2011
• Subjects: QC Physics; TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
• Online Access: http://eprints.um.edu.my/19874/; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.optlastec.2011.03.023
• Institution: Universiti Malaya

The double-pass erbium-doped zirconia fiber amplifier (EDZFA) is proposed and demonstrated to provide a wide-band amplification as well as flat-gain operation in both the C- and L-band regions using only a single-gain medium. The proposed amplifier utilizes an erbium-doped zirconia fiber (EDZF) with erbium ion concentration of 2800 ppm as a gain medium. The medium is fabricated in a ternary glass host, zirconiayttriaaluminum codoped silica fiber through solution doping technique along with modified chemical vapor deposition (MCVD). Compared to a single-pass operation, the double-pass EDZFA shows a better gain performance. At input signal power of 0 dBm and the optimum EDZF length of 2 m, a flat gain of around 16 dB is achieved by the proposed double-pass amplifier with gain variation of approximately 2.5 dB throughout the wavelength range from 1530 to 1590 nm. However, the noise figure of the double-pass amplifier is slightly higher than that of the single-pass due to inefficient population inversion at the input part of the amplifier.