Signal power transients in optically amplified WDM ring networks

Summary form only given. In multiwavelength optical networks with wavelength add/drop (WAD), closed loops may be formed, which, with the erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) used to compensate the losses of network elements and fiber spans, can constitute ring laser cavities. Laser oscillations in the ring cavity, occurring if the round trip gain exceeds the loop loss, are expected to introduce additional noise and steal power from signal channels. Recently we reported that in such networks channels in service could suffer significant power penalties due to the ring laser oscillations. We believe we report the first experimental investigation of the time dependence of signal channel power in the event of channel loss due to link failure or network reconfiguration.