Polarization-maintaining hybrid erbium-Brillouin amplifier for high-power low-noise sources

A low-noise high-power source incorporating a polarization-maintaining erbium-Brillouin fiber amplifier is presented. The output noise power is analyzed and a theoretical noise spectral density is determined. Shot-noise-limited performance is predicted and experimentally achieved within the 1-8-GHz-offset frequency range. The polarization extinction ratio was measured as 25 dB.