Abstract

In single-mode fiber communication systems, chromatic dispersion can be made negligible when sufficiently narrow linewidth transmitters are used. Thus there is no need for signal full regeneration, and simple optical amplifiers are very attractive to compensate tor propagation losses^1,2 in long-haul high- data-rate systems as repeaters or eventually detection preamplifiers and in local area networks for tap loss compensation. Semiconductor laser amplifiers^3,4 have very attractive features such as high gain, large bandwidth, and very low power consumption. Fabry-Perot (F.P.), injection-locked laser (ILL), and traveling-wave (TW) amplifiers have been extensively studied in GaAlAs devices and more recently in GaInAsP devices. It is the aim here to review and compare gain, bandwidth, and noise characteristics of these amplifiers and discuss their potential applications.

© 1987 Optical Society of America