Improved double-fiber-bus with distributed optical amplification for wavelength-division multiplexing of photonic sensors

A novel distributed optically amplified double-bus topology used for photonic sensor wavelength-division multiplexing is proposed. This new topology virtually eliminates the received amplified spontaneous emission noise generated by the erbium-doped fiber used to provide amplification. This low-noise configuration yields signal-to-noise ratios over 54 dB and increases the number of sensors that could be multiplexed in a single structure. Furthermore, this improvement is done without increasing the complexity of the regular double-bus topologies. The performance of this new topology is compared to a previously reported optically amplified double-bus topology.