Noise penalty of highly saturated erbium-doped fiber amplifiers in analog links

We outline the noise penalty of using a high-power erbium-doped fiber amplifier in the place of a shot-noise-limited laser for analog applications. Intensity noise measurements are presented using a highly saturated +22-dBm output-power amplifier, demonstrating the achievable signal-to-noise ratios when passive optical loss follows the amplification stage.