Analysis of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers pumped in the /sup 4/I/sub 15/2/-/sup 4/I/sub 13/2/ band

A theoretical model for the amplifiers predicts gain coefficients of around 2 dB per milliwatt of launched pump power, in close agreement with previously reported measurements. The model is also used to determine the optimal pump wavelength lambda /sub opt/ that maximizes the amplifier gain. It is shown that the latter is insensitive to pump detuning near lambda /sub opt/=1.48 mu m, within a 20 nm range, which indicates that broadband, multimode laser diode pump sources and pumps with narrow linewidths should yield identical gain performance.<
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