Abstract
Optical amplifiers are key components for optical communications for the various roles as preamplifiers, regenerators or post-amplifiers. Conventional co- and counter-propagating amplifier designs use three out of four ports of a multiplexer device (e.g. bulk or fiber): the pump port, the signal port and the common port leading to the amplification medium (e.g. rare earth doped fiber). Generally, the fourth port is blocked or used as a pump or signal tap. In amplifier designs with two or more pumps, each pump requires a separate multiplexer unit increasing optical loss, fabrication complexity and costs. Furthermore, cross talk between pumps can lead from minor amplifier gain and noise instability to catastrophic failure of the pumps1. Insertion of additional isolators to protect the pumps from optical feed back or the use of hybrid pumping2 of the amplifier configuration reduces this crosstalk problem.
© 1993 Optical Society of America
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