Dynamic pump-loss controlled gain-locking system for erbium-doped fiber amplifiers in multi-wavelength networks

We present a novel cost-effective electronic inversion- and gain-locking technique for erbium-doped fiber amplifiers, based on pump power loss monitoring. In this paper we present a novel technique where the pump laser light itself is used as the probe signal to lock the inversion. The advantage of this technique is that it does not need an extra DFB laser and that, compared to the optical gain clamping techniques, it only drives the pump laser at maximum power when it is needed which is favorable with respect to reliability and power consumption.