Design Optimization of 12-Core Amplifier Based on Erbium Ytterbium Co-Doped Fiber for Spatial Multiplexed Transmission System

A 20 dB gain 12 cores Er$^{3+}$/Yb$^{3+}$ co-doped cladding pumped amplifier in C-band with only 5.3 W of pump power has been achieved. A classical rate equation model has been applied for the amplifier design. Parameters such as active fiber length, pump power and ions concentration have been investigated and optimized. Results obtained through numerical simulation and experimental investigations are compared. Different use cases of MC-EYDFA have been studied, such as various transmission configuration or multi-core amplifier in ROADM architectures. 1200-km with 200G DP-QPSK and 300 km with 400G DP-16QAM are achieved in serial configuration at 1550 nm. This is a first step towards SDM transmission using power efficient amplifiers, for cost, energy and footprint saving.