A 100-channel optical FM six-stage in-line amplifier system employing tunable gain equalizers

A six-cascade in-line amplifier system that utilizes gain equalizers to successfully transmit 100 optical frequency-division-multiplexed (FDM) signals is described. Total net gain of 98 dB is obtained with a gain imbalance of 2.3 dB by employing the Mach-Zehnder filter based tunable gain equalizers; the gain imbalance is 19.3 dB without the equalizers. Bit-error-rate performance of 100-channel FSK signals at 622 Mb/s also confirms the feasibility of the gain equalizers.<
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