Experimental investigation of erbium-doped fiber amplifier gain equalization schemes using short-period Bragg gratings

Summary form only given. Gain equalization has become a necessity for in-line erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) in long-haul wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) systems. In this paper, we use spectrally designed Bragg gratings in the midstage section of a dual-stage amplifier to perform gain equalization. These gratings are easily fabricated using a previously described writing technique with a chirped phase mask.