Gain Dynamics of Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifiers

15 February 1990

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Transient gain saturation and recovery with 110-340 us time constants were observed in erbium-doped fiber amplifiers. This slow response reduces the effects of saturation-induced crosstalk and intermodulation distortion associated with multichannel signal amplification. 

In a 2-channel amplification experiment, negligible saturation-induced crosstalk was measured at signal modulation frequencies above 5 kHz. Increased suppression of saturation-induced crosstalk was achieved through feed-forward compensation to reduce low-frequency gain fluctuations.