Analysis of the gain and noise characteristics of fibre Brillouin amplifiers

Abstract

A theoretical analysis is performed of the transfer characteristics, gain, amplified spontaneous emission noise, on/off ratio and nonlinear phase shift of a fibre Brillouin amplifier, taking into account a possible signal detuning from the line centre and the nonlinear pump power depletion effect. Among other features, it is shown that the amplified spontaneous emission noise is reduced at higher signal levels and that detuning the signal reduces the amplifier gain in the linear regime and increases the spontaneous noise power in the saturation regime. As a consequence, the on/off ratio is significantly degraded by such an effect.