980-nm versus 1480-nm pumped EDFA cascade performance in WDM multiple access lightwave networks

Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs), in conjunction with wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) techniques, promise to offer significant economic performance advantages for a network through improved capacity, reliability, and transparency. The extent of the end-to-end transparency of a multiwavelength network will be limited by factors such as the non-uniform wavelength dependent gain spectrum, gain saturation, and noise characteristics of cascaded EDFAs. We believe that understanding of these issues will be essential to the design of future multiwavelength lightwave networks and in particular to help in the design of amplified WDM lightwave systems to optimize the optical gain and SNR flatness. This talk addresses and examines a number of important aspects related to these issues.