Performance comparison of Zr-based and Bi-based erbium-doped fiber amplifiers.
In this Letter, we present a comprehensive comparison of the performance of a zirconia-based erbium-doped fiber amplifier (Zr-EDFA) and a bismuth-based erbium-doped fiber amplifier (Bi-EDFA). The experimental results reveal that a Zr-EDFA can achieve comparable performance to the conventional Bi-EDFA for C-band and L-band operations. With a combination of both Zr and Al, we could achieve a high erbium-doping concentration of about 2800 ppm (parts per million) in the glass host without any phase separations of rare earths. The Zr-based erbium-doped fiber (Zr-EDF) was fabricated using in a ternary glass host, zirconia-yttria-aluminum codoped silica fiber through a solution-doping technique along with modified chemical vapor deposition. At a high input signal of 0 dBm, a flat gain at average value of 13 dB is obtained with a gain variation of less than 2 dB within the wavelength region of 1530-1575 nm and using 2 m of Zr-EDF and 120 mW pump power. The noise figures are less than 9.2 at this wavelength region. It was found that a Zr-EDFA can achieve even better flat-gain value and bandwidth as well as lower noise figure than the conventional Bi-EDFA.
Paul
M C
MC
Fibre Optics Division, Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute, 196, Raja S.C. Mullick Road, Kolkata 700 032, India. paulmukul@hotmail.com
Harun
S W
SW
Huri
N A D
NA
Hamzah
A
A
Das
S
S
Pal
M
M
Bhadra
S K
SK
Ahmad
H
H
Yoo
S
S
Kalita
M P
MP
Boyland
A J
AJ
Sahu
J K
JK