Performance comparison of enhanced Erbium–Zirconia–Yttria–Aluminum co-doped conventional erbium-doped fiber amplifiers

Abstract

A new Erbium–Zirconia–Yttria–Aluminum co-doped fiber amplifier (Zr-EDFA) with improved gain and noise figure characteristics is successfully demonstrated using a newly developed Erbium–Zirconia–Yttria–Aluminum Co-Doped fiber (Zr-EDF) as the gain medium. The fiber consists of Er2O3-doped ZrO2 rich nano-crystalline particles and thus it has a high erbium doping concentration with absorption pump power around 80.0dB/m at 980nm. Compared to the conventional silica based Erbium-doped fiber amplifier (Si-EDFA), the gain of the proposed Zr-EDFA is more efficient especially at longer wavelength region. At input signal of −10dBm, a flat gain of 19.5dB is obtained for the single-pass Zr-EDFA with gain variation of less than 1dB within a wavelength region from 1530 to 1570nm. In double-pass configuration, the measured gain varies from 17.5dB to 21.3dB within the wavelength region from 1525 to 1565nm, where the noise figure is maintained at below 10dB. The double-pass Zr-EDFA gain is also maintained above 12dB within a wavelength region from 1520 to 1600nm. These results indicate that the Zr-EDFA can achieve even better flat-gain value and bandwidth as well as lower noise figure than the conventional Si-EDFA