Bidirectional Erbium-doped Fiber Amplifier Research Articles

Optically synchronized unidirectional optical amplifier-based coherent optical fiber links.

We report on the realization of a unidirectional transmission-based bidirectional erbium-doped fiber amplifier (UTB-EDFA) for the coherent optical fiber links. By applying an optical phase-locked loop (OPLL) between the two unidirectional EDFA (Ui-EDFA) paths, the annoying uncorrelated phase noise between the two paths can be largely suppressed. Promisingly, we can independently optimize the gains of the UTB-EDFAs for bidirectional transmissions, resulting in higher net gain acquired compared with the conventional single-path bidirectional EDFA (SPBA)-based ones. We demonstrate that the fractional frequency instability of the UTB-EDFA-based scheme can be decreased by 26.3% over the most asymmetrical 100 km two-way optical frequency comparison (TWC) system compared with the SPBA-based ones and, more importantly, can acquire higher net gain for unevenly distributed sub-links over ultra-long fiber links, such as 1000 km, by independently optimizing the gains. This technique paves the way for the applications of large-scale fiber networks.

Linear Fiber Laser Configurations for Optical Concentration Sensing in Liquid Solutions

In this study, different configurations based on linear fiber lasers were proposed and experimentally demonstrated to measure the concentration of liquid solutions. Samples of paracetamol liquid solutions with different concentrations, in the range from 52.61 to 201.33 g/kg, were used as a case-study. The optical gain was provided by a commercial bidirectional Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifier (EDFA) and the linear cavity was obtained using two commercial Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs). The main difference of each configuration was the coupling ratio of the optical coupler used to extract the system signal. The sensing head corresponded to a Single-Mode Fiber (SMF) tip that worked as an intensity sensor. The results reveal that, despite the optical coupler used (50:50, 60:40, 70:30 or 80:20), all the configurations reached the laser condition, however, the concentration sensing was only possible using a laser drive current near to the threshold value. The configurations using a 70:30 and an 80:20 optical coupler allowed paracetamol concentration measurements with a higher sensitivity of (−3.00 ± 0.24) pW/(g/kg) to be performed. In terms of resolution, the highest value obtained was 1.75 g/kg, when it was extracted at 20% of the output power to the linear cavity fiber laser configuration.

Amplified frequency-shifted interferometry fiber loop ringdown glucose sensors using side-polished fiber

An amplified frequency-shifted interferometry fiber loop ringdown (FSI-FLRD) sensor is proposed for the concentration measurement of glucose solutions. It detects glucose concentrations by measuring the ringdown distance of the continuous light in the fiber ringdown loop (RDL) instead of the ringdown time of the pulsed light in the loop as in traditional FLRD glucose sensors. A bidirectional erbium-doped fiber amplifier (Bi-EDFA) and a segment of side-polished fiber (SPF) are respectively inserted into the RDL to compensate the loop attenuation and to act as the sensing probe. The proposed optical sensor was tested with glucose solutions in the concentration range from 0 to 14 % at room temperature, which exhibits a linear response with a sensitivity of 0.0013 km−1/% (4.12x10−4 dB/%) for the 0–8 % glucose solutions. Additionally, it also achieved a system stability of 0.75 %, with a measuring resolution of around 2.63 %. The experimental results show the proposed sensor has simple structure, low cost, robust stability and good resolution, and it is a suitable alternative for the detection of glucose concentrations in biological detection, component analysis and on-line quality control in food industry.

A novel active continuous-wave FLRD strain sensor based on frequency-shifted interferometry

ABSTRACT An active continuous-wave fiber loop ringdown strain sensor based on frequency-shifted interferometry is presented and experimentally investigated. By measuring the decay rate of the continuous light in the ringdown loop (RDL), the sensor achieves strain measurement without optical pulsation and rapid detection. A bidirectional erbium-doped fiber amplifier is embedded in the loop to form an active fiber RDL, to compensate the inherent loop loss. The strain sensor head was built by splicing a segment of normal graded index multimode fiber (MMF) into the RDL composed of single-mode fiber. In this configuration, the core-cladding mode conservation and insertion loss of the MMF changes with the strain applied, making it possible to detect different levels of strains. The proposed device was tested with the strains in the range from 0 to 2.25 mϵ, which exhibits a linear response with a sensitivity of 0.29 km-1·mϵ-1, with a measurement resolution of 22 mϵ.

300 km ultralong fiber optic DAS system based on optimally designed bidirectional EDFA relays

Optical fiber distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) based on phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometry (φ-OTDR) is in great demand in many long-distance application fields, such as railway and pipeline safety monitoring. However, the DAS measurement distance is limited by the transmission loss of optical fiber and ultralow backscattering power. In this paper, a DAS system based on multispan relay amplification is proposed, where the bidirectional erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) is designed as a relay module to amplify both the probe light and the backscattering light. In the theoretical noise model, the parameters of our system are carefully analyzed and optimized for a longer sensing distance, including the extinction ratio (ER), span number, span length, and gain of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers. The numerical simulation shows that a bidirectional EDFA relay DAS system can detect signals over 2500 km, as long as the span number is set to be more than 100. To verify the effectiveness of the scheme, a six-span coherent-detection-based DAS system with an optimal design was established, where the cascaded acoustic-optic modulators (AOMs) were used for a high ER of 104 dB. The results demonstrate that the signal at the far end of 300.2 km can be detected and recovered, achieving a high signal-to-noise ratio of 59.6 dB and a high strain resolution of 51.8pε/Hz at 50 Hz with a 20 m spatial resolution. This is, to the best of our knowledge, a superior DAS sensing distance with such a high strain resolution.

Amplified frequency-shifted fiber loop ringdown pressure sensing

An amplified frequency-shifted fiber loop ringdown (FSI-FLRD) sensor is demonstrated for pressure measurement. This sensor measures pressure by monitoring the decay rate of continuous light (i.e. ringdown distance) in the fiber ringdown loop (RDL) in the spatial domain, instead of monitoring the decay rate of pulse light (i.e. ringdown time) in the time domain like traditional FLRD techniques, hence it needs neither optical pulsation nor fast electronics, improving the system cost performance. A low-noise bidirectional erbium-doped fiber amplifier (Bi-EDFA) is inserted into the RDL to compensate the intrinsic loop loss and for achieving higher detection limit. By being applied different weights on the sensing probe, the sensor detected the pressures from 0 to 5.2 MPa with a sensitivity of 0.04888 (/km MPa). The ringdown stability was 0.6%, corresponding to a detection limit of 0.04 MPa.

Resilience to Passive Attacks of a Secure Key Distribution System Based on an Ultra-Long Fiber Laser Using a Bi-Directional EDFA

In this paper, we study the implementation of a secure key distribution system based on an ultra-long fiber laser with a bi-directional erbium-doped fiber amplifier. The resilience of the system was tested against passive attacks from an eavesdropper. A similarity was observed in the spectra for both secure configurations of the system and no signature that would allow an eavesdropper to obtain the secure state of the system was observed during the state transitions.

Optical sensor using space-domain active fiber cavity ringdown technique

A novel active fiber cavity ringdown (FCRD) technique using frequency-shifted interferometry (FSI) is proposed for the first time. Using this scheme, external parameters can be monitored in the space domain by measuring the ringdown distance instead of ringdown time. A bidirectional erbium-doped fiber amplifier (Bi-EDFA) is employed to compensate the inherent cavity loss for achieving higher sensitivity. And two band-pass filters are used to reduce the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise of the Bi-EDFA. Compared with the well-known time-domain active FCRD scheme, our proposed method enables us to avoid using pulsed laser needed in time-domain active FCRD, it uses continuous-wave laser to inject into the fiber cavity and stabilize the optical power in the fiber cavity, which can suppress the baseline drift of ringdown signal caused by the gain fluctuations of the EDFA and thus improve the detecting precision. Moreover, this novel method enables us to use differential detection method for further reducing the ASE noise, and thus eliminating the baseline drift of ringdown signal. A magnetic field sensor was developed as a proof-of-concept demonstration. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed sensor with a sensitivity of 0.01537 (1/km·Gs) was achieved. This is the highest magnetic field sensitivity compared to the time-domain active FLRD method. Due to the reduced ASE noise, the stability of the proposed sensing system was also greatly improved.

Fast and on-line link optimization for the long-distance two-way fiber-optic time and frequency transfer.

The performance of long-distance two-way fiber-optic time and frequency (T/F) transfer is directly affected by link parameters. In this paper, a fast on-line scheme to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio at the T/F transfer link ends (denoted by SNRW and SNRE) is proposed by optimizing the gains of bidirectional Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (Bi-EDFAs). The dedicatedly defined objective optimization functions, ln(1/SNRW + 1/SNRE) for microwave and time transfer, and ln(1/SNRW) for optical frequency transfer, are proven to be a convex function and enable the computation time to be reduced significantly by employing the fast and mature convex optimization algorithm. The linear equations about the objective optimization function and the fiber parameters required by optimization are constructed, and then the fiber parameters are proposed to be on-line obtained accordingly by measuring the concerned SNR at the link end under different EDFA gain configurations and solving the linear equations. The transmission matrixes for the proposed optimization scheme are further derived, which can simplify the implementation in the long-distance multiple EDFAs links. The simulation shows that the proposed algorithm can obtain the optimal parameters consistent with the reported experimental results, and can reduce the computation time by more than four orders compared with the scanning optimization method for a link with more than 6 Bi-EDFAs.

Reduction in differential phase noise of distributed acoustic sensing with bidirectional amplifier

We investigate the effect of a bidirectional erbium-doped fiber amplifier on the reduction of the differential phase noise in long-range distributed acoustic sensing by coherent detection. We succeeded in reducing the differential phase noise at the fiber position after the amplifier over a distance of 100 km by adjusting the gain of the bidirectional amplifier considering the amplified spontaneous emission. This will effectively improve the accuracy of strain measurement over long distances.

Multipoint space-domain active fiber cavity ringdown technique for quasi-distributed magnetic field monitoring

A multipoint space-domain active fiber cavity ringdown (FCRD) sensing technique based on frequency-shifted interferometry (FSI) is proposed and investigated for quasi-distributed magnetic field measurements. Multiple FSI-based fiber ringdown cavities (RDCs) are cascaded together to constitute a sensor array, share one continuous-wave optical source and one slow balanced detector, and thus the system is economical and highly sensitive. In each RDC a bidirectional erbium-doped fiber amplifier (Bi-EDFA) is inserted to compensate the inherent cavity loss for achieving higher sensitivity. Compared to the time-domain active FCRD techniques, the amplifier has lower gain fluctuation because the continuous light (instead of pulse light) coupled into the cavity enables more stable optical power, and has lower amplified spontaneous emission noise due to the use of two narrow bandpass filters and differential detection. Magnetic fields in different locations are synchronously resolved in the space domain by measuring the ringdown distances of continuous light, rather than measuring the ringdown times of pulse light in the time domain as in conventional multipoint FCRD techniques. A dual-point active FSI-FCRD magnetic field sensor was experimentally built, and two side-polished fibers coated with magnetic fluid were incorporated inside the fiber cavities as the sensing probes. By applying the external magnetic field from 0 to 230 Gs, the sensitivities of 6.68 × 10−3 and 4.45 × 10−3/(km Gs) were respectively achieved, which are at least one order of magnitude higher than the conventional passive FCRD techniques. After repeated measurements, the obtained ringdown baseline stabilities of the two units were 0.91% and 2.00%, which were much higher than those of time-domain active FCRD sensing systems. Using power budget analysis, the maximum number of identical sensing units can be expected to be 48 over a 25.89-km distance under the nearly same experimental conditions. The proposed multipoint active FCRD sensing scheme has the merits of low cost, high sensitivity, good stability, and strong multiplexing ability, which would find good application prospects at electric grids, national defense, biology, and medicine for monitoring quasi-distributed magnetic field.

Secure key distribution using an ultra-long fiber laser with bi-directional EDFA

In this paper we describe the implementation of a secure key distribution system based on an ultra-long fiber laser with a bi-directional erbium doped fiber amplifier. The resilience of the system was tested against passive attacks from an eavesdropper, having been observed a similarity in spectrum for both secure configurations of the system.

Modeling of cascaded high isolation bidirectional amplification in long-distance fiber-optic time and frequency synchronization system* *Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61701040, 61771062, and 61871044), the Youth Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61901046), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China (Grant Nos. 2019XD-A18 and 2019PTB-004), and

We propose a physical model of estimating noise and asymmetry brought by high isolation Bi-directional erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (Bi-EDFAs), no spontaneous lasing even with high gain, in longdistance fiber-optic time and frequency (T/F) synchronization system. It is found that the Rayleigh scattering noise can be suppressed due to the high isolation design, but the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise generated by the high isolation Bi-EDFA and the bidirectional asymmetry of the transmission link caused by the high isolation Bi-EDFA will deteriorate the stability of the system. The calculated results show that under the influence of ASE noise, the frequency instability of a 1200 km system composed of 15 high isolation Bi-EDFAs is 1.773 × 10−13/1 s. And the instability caused by asymmetry is 2.6064 × 10−16/30000–35000 s if the total asymmetric length of the bidirectional link length is 30 m. The intensity noises originating from the laser and detector, the transfer delay fluctuations caused by the variation in ambient temperature and the jitter in laser output wavelength are also studied. The experiment composed of three high isolation Bi-EDFAs is done to confirm the theoretical analysis. In summary, the paper shows that the short-term instability of the T/F synchronization system composed of high isolation Bi-EDFAs is limited by the accumulation of ASE noise of amplifiers and the laser frequency drift, while the long-term instability is limited by the periodic variation in ambient temperature and the asymmetry of the amplifiers. The research results are useful for pointing out the direction to improve the stability of the fiber-optic T/F synchronization system.

Key technology of high-precision time frequency transfer via 200 km desert urban fiber link

The precise time and frequency signal dissemination has significant applications in scientific research such as baseline interferometry, deep space network and metrology. Aside from satellite based systems, optical fiber has become an attractive alternative medium for transferring time and frequency signals, offering much improved accuracy. For the urban fiber link in the desert environment, there are many complex noise sources, such as temperature change, outdoor wind and ground vibration. Therefore, a systematical study on the noise source and on the noise reduction method in the dessert environment have practical significance. In this paper, we demonstrate a time (1 pps) and frequency signal dissemination and time synchronization system through a 200 km urban fiber in dessert environment. The noise source of the urban fiber under dessert environment is analyzed and studied in detail; the results show that the vibration and temperature shift are the major influencing factors. The vibration of urban fiber can induce the noise in the high Fourier frequency, and the temperature shift of urban fiber can induce the noise at a low Fourier frequency. An optical compensation setup is used, including the optical delay line with temperature controlled and piezoelectric ceramics driving. The phase fluctuation of frequency signal is detected and used to control the feedback of the optical compensating setup. In order to compensate for the fiber loss in a long range, a special bi-directional erbium-doped fiber amplifier is used to regenerate optical signals to achieve the long distance transmission. Then, we study the effective link noise suppression technology under different feedback compensation parameters. The systematic feedback parameters are optimized through using the different system feedback bandwidths, feedback intensities, optical power and other key parameters. The optimized systematic feedback parameters are obtained via the careful experimental observation and discussion. With the optimized systematic feedback parameters, experimental results show that the frequency stabilities are up to 8 × 10<sup>–14</sup> at 1 s and 1 × 10<sup>–16</sup> at 1000 s, and time stabilities are up to 1.2 ps in an average time of 10<sup>3</sup> s. The phase stabilized transmission of hydrogen clock signal in the 200 km level desert environment urban fiber link is realized. The verification experiment plays an important role in measuring the satellite orbit based on a connected elements’ interferometry. The relevant study result is of significance for improving the precision of time and frequency signal dissemination in the dessert environmental urban fiber.

Single-Fiber Bi-Directional Burst-Mode EDFA for TWDM-PON

In this paper, we propose a single-fiber bi-directional burst-mode erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) to simultaneously improve upstream and downstream loss budget in time and wavelength division multiplexed–passive optical network (TWDM-PON). Instead of additional light sources for upstream gain clamping, the downstream signal acting as saturation signal effectively suppresses the upstream burst surge, which widens the input dynamic range of upstream burst signal. For potential reflections caused by the absence of optical isolators, experimental results have demonstrated the degradation of receiver sensitivity at bit-error rate of $1 \times 10^{-3}$ is negligible with a reflection power up to −14 dBm, which proves the promising applications in PONs of the proposed single-fiber bi-directional burst-mode EDFA.

Stable radio frequency dissemination via a 1007 km fiber link based on a high-performance phase lock loop.

In this paper, we propose an active-compensation stable radio frequency (RF) transmission scheme based on a high-performance phase lock loop (PLL). In our PLL, a new structure for phase-detection is designed with only one standard RF signal to obtain a simple structure with no interference from other signals. In addition, different optical wavelengths carrying the same RF signal are utilized in the two directions to suppress Rayleigh scattering. The low phase noise homemade bi-directional erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) module is used to reduce signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) deterioration. Hence, the transmission distance is greatly improved. The effects of polarization mode dispersion and phase noise produced by the EDFA on the transmission distance are discussed. Ultimately, a stable RF signal with 2.4 GHz transmitted over a 1007 km fiber link is obtained. The experimental results demonstrate that frequency instabilities of 1.2×10- 13 at 1s and 5.1×10- 16 at 20000s. Therefore, the system can be used for atomic clocks comparisons and provides frequency standard for time transfer systems over a long-haul fiber.

First industrial-grade coherent fiber link for optical frequency standard dissemination.

We report on a fully bidirectional 680km fiber link connecting two cities for which the equipment, the setup, and the characterization are managed for the first time by an industrial consortium. The link uses an active telecommunication fiber network with parallel data traffic and is equipped with three repeater laser stations and four remote double bidirectional erbium-doped fiber amplifiers. We report a short-term stability at 1s integration time of 5.4×10-16 in 0.5Hz bandwidth and a long-term stability of 1.7×10-20 at 65,000s of integration time. The accuracy of the frequency transfer is evaluated as 3×10-20. No shift is observed within the statistical uncertainty. We show a continuous operation over five days with an uptime of 99.93%. This performance is comparable with the state-of-the-art coherent links established by National Metrology Institutes in Europe. It is a first step in the construction of an optical fiber network for metrology in France, which will give access to an ultrahigh performance frequency standard to a wide community of scientific users.

High-precision two-way time transfer system via long-distance commercial fiber link

Time synchronization techniques, especially on the pulse per second (PPS) temporal basis, have attracted growing research interests in recent years. In this paper, we have proposed and experimentally demonstrated a high-precision two-way time transfer (TWTT) system to realize long-distance dissemination of 1 PPS signal generated by a hydrogen maser. A dense-wavelength-division-multiplexing (DWDM) system and bi-directional erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (Bi-EDFAs) have also been adopted to suppress the impact of Rayleigh backscattering and optimize the signal to noise ratio (SNR) as well. We have theoretically analyzed the systematic delay in detail. The ultimate root mean square (RMS) variation of time synchronization accuracy is sub-26 ps and the time deviation can be reduced to as low as 1.2 ps at 100 s and 0.253 ps at 12 000 s, respectively.

Bidirectional Amplification Technique and AcoustoOptic Filter for Upgrading Ultra-High Capacity Optical Transmission Systems

This paper presents high transmission bit rate based on both bidirectional erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) and acousto-optic filters using different modulation coding techniques. The performance parameters such as gain flatness, Quality factor, bit error rate, output power, gain with and without acousto-optic filters with EDFA length variation, core radius, pumping power, pumping wavelength, ion density, doping radius, numerical aperture and ambient temperature can be measured. The optimum values for the maximum gain flatness can be obtained with the best modulation format and different number of channels.

Bidirectional EDFAs That Support E2-Class Power Budget of TWDM-PON Without Using Gain-Clamped Light Source

This paper introduces an Erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA)-based solution to support the maximum link budget class (E2) of the time- and wavelength-division multiplexed passive optical network (TWDM-PON). Bidirectional EDFAs, each consisting of an L-band EDFA as the downstream WDM signal booster and a C-band EDFA as the upstream WDM signal preamplifier, are utilized to reduce the number of EDFAs required. Technical challenges are how to widen the input dynamic range of upstream burst signal detection using a preamplifier, and how to reduce the number of optical components. To resolve these issues, a novel device configuration is proposed, where a very short C-band EDF is pumped by a high-power pump light and the pump power unused by the C-band EDF is reused to pump the L-band EDF. A prototype integrated in an MSA-size package is developed, and its effectiveness in supporting the E2-class power budget is experimentally confirmed.