An asymmetric bidirectional amplifier with all-optical gain control for randomly variable data traffic

A novel all-optical gain-controlled two-stage amplifier using optical interleavers for asymmetric bidirectional transmission was proposed and demonstrated in a compact structure. The amplifier achieved high and constant gain with wide dynamic rage of input signal and low noise figure. The performance does not depend on the input signal conditions, whether static-state or transient signals, or whether symmetric or asymmetric data traffic in bidirectional transmission. The transmission experiments for random asymmetric bidirectional data traffic verified that the all-optical gain control and bidirectional amplification functions were successfully combined into this amplifier.