Site-Dependent Pumping Effect on Two-Level EDFAs

The impact of site-dependent pumping (SDP) on the performance of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) pumped at wavelengths around 1480 nm is investigated, both experimentally and numerically. An improved numerical model incorporating the SDP effect for two-level EDFAs is derived and experimentally validated. We confirm by comparing with experimental data that the proposed model accurately describes the dependence of the amplifier gain spectrum on the pump wavelength and pump power. We conclude that SDP has a significant impact on the dynamic response of an EDFA due to input spectral variations and should be considered when simulating high performance links.