WDM & Amplifiers

WDM
 The fiber optic industry first deployed
single wavelength transmission links.
 As requirements changed, the industry
responded with wavelength-division
multiplexing (WDM), which sends two
distinct signals per fiber, doubling
transmission capacity.
 In one way WDM is similar to splitter.
 Unlike the splitter, however, they have
very little insertion loss.
WDM contd..,
 The true potential of optical fibre is fully
exploited when multiple beams of light at
different frequencies are transmitted on the
same fibre.
 Two important considerations in a WDM
device are crosstalk and channel
separation.
 Crosstalk, also called directivity, refers to
separation of demultiplexed channels.
 Each channel should appear only at its
intended port.
 The crosstalk specification expresses how well a
coupler maintains this port-to-port seperation.
 Channel separation describes a coupler’s ability
to distinguish wavelengths
 WDMs allow multiple independent data streams
to be sent over one fiber.
 The most common WDM system uses two
wavelengths, although four or more-wavelength
systems are available.
 Following figure illustrates two WDMs
permitting two streams of data to be carried
on a single fiber.
 The type of data does not matter. For
example, one stream could be a video signal
and the other could be an RS-232 data stream.
 The configuration shown is unidirectional, but
bidirectional configurations are also available.
 WDM can also be used with concave mirrors
and diffraction grating.
 Following figure which makes use of a concave
mirror.
 Dichroic Filter: An optical filter
that transmits light according to
wavelength. Dichroic filters reflect
light that they do not transmit.
 Constructed from discrete lenses and filters, a
dichroic filter lies at the center of the WDM.
 Dichroic filters, reflect the light that they do
not transmit.
 In the following figure, Fiber 1 carriers two
wavelengths, 850 nm and 1310 nm
 Here it is designed that dichroic filter passes
wavelengths longer than 1100 nm, known as
long-wave pass (LWP) filter
 As the light exits Fiber 1 it first passes through
the lens which focuses the light at a point.
 As the light hits the filter, the 1310 nm light
passes through the filter and is collected by
Fiber 3.
 The 850 nm light exiting Fiber 1 on the other
hand reflects off of the filter and is collected
by Fiber 2.
 Thus the information on the two effectively
paired wavelengths can be independently
decoded.
 The dichroic filter can offer a great deal of
isolation in the transmission mode, but has
poor isolation in the reflection mode.
 Usually these types of WDMs feature both
short-wave pass (SWP) and LWP filters, and
combining these filters achieves the best
system performance.
Diffraction grating WDM
 Diffraction grating is An array of fine, parallel,
equally spaced reflecting or transmitting lines
that mutually enhance the effects of diffraction
to concentrate the diffracted light in a few
directions determined by the spacing of the
lines and by the wavelength of the light.
 This could be of two types as Transmissive
diffraction grating and reflective diffraction
grating.
 In diffraction grating WDM, we use
diffraction grating instead of dichrole
mirror which directs incident wave to
different fibers.
 Its operation is also reversible.
Optical Amplifiers
 When setting up an optical link, one calculates
a power budget and adds repeaters when there
are more losses.
 To amplify an optical signal with conventional
repeater, it is necessary to do optical to
electrical conversion, electrical amplification,
retiming, pulse shaping (reshaping) and then
electrical to optical conversion.
 Although this process works well for moderate
speed single wavelength operation, this will be
expensive for high speed multiwavelength
systems.
 So a lot of work has been done to
develop all-optical amplifiers.
 These devices operate completely in
optical domain to boost the power
levels of light wave signals.
 These amplifiers are called as DFA
(doped fiber amplifiers).
 Examples are Thulium DFA,
Praseodymium DFA, Erbium DFA.
 Of them EDFA is most popular.
Optical Amplifiers
 With the demand for longer transmission lengths,
optical amplifiers have become an essential
component in long-haul fiber optic systems.
 Optical amplifiers have made WDM practical
 The erbium doped fiber amplifier has been
particularly important in the growth of WDM
technology
Repeater vs Amplifier
 Repeater (or Regenerator)
 Generates “fresh copy” of signal (+)
 Requires O-E-O conversion (-)
 Tied to bit rate and signal format (-)
 Operates on single wavelength (-)
 Amplifier
 Amplifies input and all (-)
 Adds noise (-)
 No O-E-O conversion (+)
 Independent of bit rate and signal format (+)
 Amplifies multiple wavelengths in a range (+)
Two Types of Optical
Amplifiers
 Semiconductor optical amplifiers
 Variation of a laser diode
 Fiber optical amplifiers
 Special type of fiber spliced between two
sections of transmission fiber
 Pump laser excites electrons in this fiber
 Incoming photons stimulate additional
photons in the special fiber, resulting in gain
 Primary example: erbium-doped fiber
amplifier (EDFA)
Optical Amplifier Functions
 Optical amplifier can serve any of the following
purposes as
 Booster
 In-line Amplifier
 Preamplifier
 Many tunable laser designs output low optical
power levels and must be immediately
followed by an optical amplifier.
 Booster Amplifier:
 Many tunable laser designs output low
optical power levels and must be
immediately followed by an optical
amplifier.
 A power amplifier or booster amplifier
may be employed to boost the signal
immediately following the transmitter.
 Line Amplifier:
 This can be used in the signal path to compensate
for transmission loss and increase the distance
between regenerative repeaters.
Pre Amplifier:
 An optical preamplifier is placed immediately
before a receiver to improve its sensitivity.
 By doing so a weak optical signal is amplified
before photodetection.
 Booster
Tx Rx
OA

 In-line amplifier

Tx Rx
OA

 Preamplifier

Tx Rx
OA
Semiconductor Optical
Amplifiers
 Semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) are
essentially laser diodes, without end mirrors,
which have fiber attached to both ends.
 They amplify any optical signal that comes from
either fiber and transmit an amplified version of
the signal out of the second fiber.
 SOAs are typically constructed in a small
package, and they work for 1310 nm and 1550
nm systems.
SOA contd..,
 In addition, they transmit bidirectionally,
making the reduced size of the device.
 However SOA produces more coupling losses
and are polarization dependent.
 Polarization dependent means gain of the
amplifier is dependent on polarization of
incoming wave which in not maintainable. Due
to this gain can vary over time due to shift in
polarization.
EDFA (Erbium Doped Fiber
Amplifier)
 EDFAs allow information to be transmitted
over longer distances without the need for
conventional repeaters.
 The fiber is doped with erbium, a rare earth
element, that has the appropriate energy
levels in their atomic structures for
amplifying light.
 EDFAs are designed to amplify light at
around 1500 nm to 1600 nm range.
(Practically 1530-1560 nm region)
 An Erbium Doped Fibre Amplifier consists of a short
(typically ten metres or so) section of fibre which has
a small controlled amount of the rare earth element
erbium added to the glass in the form of an ion.
 The principle involved here is same as the principle of
a laser.
 Erbium ions are able to exist in several energy states
 When an erbium ion is in a high-energy
state, a photon of light will stimulate it
to give up some of its energy (also in
the form of light) and return to a lower-
energy (more stable) state.
 This is called “stimulated emission”
  The basic principle of the EDFA is
illustrated in following figure
Input Erbium-doped Output
fiber Isolator
Coupler Coupler And
Filter
Pumping light

Pump Residual pumping

laser light
EDFA Operation
 Operation is as follows:
 1. A (relatively) high-powered beam of light is
mixed with the input signal using a wavelength
selective coupler. (The input signal and the
excitation light must of course be at significantly
different wavelengths.)
 2. The mixed light is guided into a section of fibre
with erbium ions included in the core.
 3. This high-powered light beam excites the erbium
ions to their higher-energy state.
EDFA Operation contd..,
 4. When the photons belonging to the signal (at a
different wavelength from the pump light) meet the
excited erbium atoms, the erbium atoms give up
some of their energy to the signal and return to
their lower-energy state.
 5. A significant point is that the erbium gives up its
energy in the form of additional photons which are
exactly in the same phase and direction as the
signal being amplified. So the signal is amplified
along its direction of travel only.
EDFA Operation contd..,
 6. There is usually an isolator placed at the
output to prevent reflections returning from
the attached fibre.
 Since the pump photon must have higher
energy than the signal photon, the pump
wavelength is shorter than signal wavelength.
 Pump laser will work at 980 nm or 1480 nm
wavelengths.
Noise in Optical Amplifiers
 Primarily due to amplified spontaneous
emission (ASE)
 Some photons emitted spontaneously rather than
stimulated with random phase and directions
 These photons can stimulate additional “noise
photons”
 The origin of ASE is the spontaneous
recombination of electrons and holes.
 This will give rise to more photons that will get
amplified along with the optical signal
Benefits of EDFA
 Minimal polarization sensitivity
 Low insertion loss
 High output power
 Low noise
 High sensitivity
 Minimal crosstalk