Fiber Optical Parametric Amplifier Performance in a 1-Tb/s DWDM Communication System

• Published in: IEEE journal of selected topics in quantum electronics Vol. 18; no. 2; pp. 950 - 957
• Main Authors: Dahdah, N. E., Govan, D. S., Jamshidifar, M., Doran, N. J., Marhic, M. E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.03.2012; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Bit error rate; Communications networks; Erbium-doped fiber amplifier; fiber optic communication; Fiber optical parametric oscillators and amplifiers; Optical fiber amplifiers; Optical noise; Receivers; Signal to noise ratio; Studies; Wavelength division multiplexing
• ISSN: 1077-260X; 1558-4542
• DOI: 10.1109/JSTQE.2011.2160155

We have reduced signal-signal four-wave mixing crosstalk in a fiber optical parametric amplifier (OPA) by using a short nonlinear fiber for the gain medium and a high-power pump. This allowed us to obtain less than 1 dB penalty for amplification of 26 dense wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) channels modulated at 43.7 Gb/s return to zero-differential phase-shift keying, with the OPA placed between transmitter and receiver. We then used the same OPA in several different roles for a long-haul transmission system. We did not insert the OPA within the loop, but investigated this role indirectly by using equivalent results for small numbers of loop recirculations. We found that standard erbium-doped fiber amplifiers currently hold an advantage over this OPA, which becomes negligible for long distances. This paper shows that at this time OPAs can handle amplification of WDM traffic in excess of 1 Tb/s with little degradation. It also indicates that with further improvements, fiber OPAs could be a contender for wideband amplification in future optical communication networks.