Performance analysis of dynamic erbium-doped fiber amplifier simulator

Abstract

A real time multichannel dynamic erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) Simulink model with flat gain and gain clamping facility has been developed on a MATLAB platform. We model the EDFA simulator with one-dimensional nonlinear differential equation that describes the time dependent population density. For the model to show gain flattening multiplexed channels at different wavelengths, the MATLAB function block is used. Next, to simulate the noise performance of EDFA. New forward amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise blocks are designed that add noise dynamically at signal wavelength. The model has been implemented in the study of performance characteristics of an EDFA in both C - and L -band signal amplification by simulation. Based on the designed ASE generator, noise figure for different signal wavelengths are calculated. For 980 nm pump power, the noise figure almost reaches the practical limit of 3 dB whereas for 1480 nm pump power, a variation of about 1.5 dB and 0.8 dB is observed from the practical limit for the C - and L -bands, respectively. The present model can be implemented successfully as a test bed in the study of EDFA gain dynamics over the entire third optical communication bandwidth (1525 to 1690 nm) in signal amplification.