Coupled structure for wide-band EDFA with gain and noise figure improvements from C to L-band ASE injection

We propose a novel structure for C plus L-band silica based wide-band erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (W-EDFA's), which use backward amplified spontaneous emission from the C-band EDFA as the pump-mediating injection source for the L-band amplifier unit. Experimental results show gain and noise figure improvements of over 2.6 dB and 0.6 dB, respectively, at -3.5 dBm of L-band input signal power. Spatially resolved numerical analysis confirms the pump-mediating effect of C-band backward ASE in the L-band EDFA for the gain and noise figure improvement, which also provides better understanding on the dynamics of C-band injection seed methods.