Design of broadband erbium-doped fiber amplifier using very high-speed integrated circuit hardware description language for next-generation optical network

Abstract

We mainly concentrate on the problem of gain broadening and flattening of erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) using dual forward-pumping configuration in which we use pumping both at 980 and 1480 nm wavelengths. The gain cascading of two EDFAs pumped separately at 980 and 1480 nm combines the advantage of high gain characteristics of 980 nm pumping and broad bandwidth characteristics of 1480 nm pumping. The use of increased number of channels in the present dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) optical network requires a flat gain spectrum across the whole usable bandwidth. The use of very high-speed integrated circuit hardware description language (VHDL-AMS) in lightwave system modeling has been explored. Its application in designing wideband EDFA has not been reported thus far. This work facilitates to design broadband EDFA operating in both the C-band and L-band regions with VHDL-AMS. The amplifier design is made of a dual stage, copumped at 980 and 1480 nm, which delivers an average output power of -16 dBm over the entire 3-dB bandwidth of 80 nm.