Gain equalization of EDFA's with Bragg gratings

Flat-gain amplifiers are needed to ensure proper amplification of every channel in wavelength-division-multiplexed communication systems. Such amplifiers can be realized by combining a precisely tailored filter with an erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA). In this letter, we show that Bragg gratings can lead to accurate EDFA gain equalization. Reflection and transmission gratings have been used to demonstrate gain equalization over 32 nm with excursion inferior to /spl plusmn/0.1 and /spl plusmn/0.3 dB, respectively. A maximum 0.04-dB noise-figure penalty results from this process. By extension, Bragg gratings could also equalize the gain of any arbitrary gain profile, over any arbitrary bandwidth.