Effects of optical losses on characteristics of silicon nanocrystal-Er-doped fiber amplifier

Abstract

In this paper, effects of different process introducing optical losses such as cooperative up-conversion, excited state absorption (ESA), confined carrier absorption loss and scattering on steady state characteristics in silicon nanocrystal (Si-Nc) Er-doped fiber amplifier are studied. These processes are studied for population inversion and net gain optimization. It is shown that cooperative up-conversion process has dominant effect compared other losses on gain in the Si-Nc Er doped fiber amplifier (SNEDFA). Our calculations show that effect of cooperative up-conversion in traditional EDFA is so sensitive compared SNEDFA. Also, it is observed that the population inversion versus Er ions is constant in the case of small cooperative up-conversion coefficient. On the other hand when cooperative up-conversion coefficient is increased with increasing of Er ions concentration the population inversion strongly decreased. Another important quantity which disturbs optical gain is ESA. With increasing of the ESA coefficient the optical gain is decreased. For analysis of effects of these processes on optical net gain the rate equations using two and five levels Si-Nc and Er ions based model is used.