An experimental investigation of the gain spectrum of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers under various system configurations

The paper presents an experimental investigation of the gain spectrum of an erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) considering different system configurations, which include single-pass, double-pass, and double-pass with tunable band-pass filter (TBF). The role of TBF is to suppress the undesired amplified spontaneous emission (ASE). Both co- and counter-pumping schemes are considered with a 1480 nm laser diode as the pump and a suitable tunable laser source as the signal source. The results indicate that the signal achieves an average of 14 dB higher gain in the case of double-pass amplification with the implementation of a TBF. However, the pumping scheme hardly becomes of much importance in influencing the gain characteristics. (C) 2008 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.