Second-order distortion of amplified intensity-modulated signals with chirping in erbium-doped fiber

Second-order distortion produced in an erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) is investigated theoretically and experimentally. Rate equations for intermodulation products are led by the perturbation method. From numerical calculation, it is shown that optimum combinations of input power to EDFA and signal wavelength exist that give a distortion-free condition, Improvement of the composite second-order (CSO) distortion, which results from the cancellation of the laser distortion and the gain tilt induced distortion, was confirmed for VHF multichannel transmission. Furthermore, CSO distortion-free transmission in cascaded EDFA's has been demonstrated for a 42-channel AM-SCM signal by experimentally determining the optimum operating condition of the EDFA such that each amplifier generates no additive distortion.