Faculty of Electrical Engineering
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
VOL. 11, NO. 1, 2009, 34-37
ELEKTRIKA
http://fke.utm.my/elektrika
34
EDFA Gain Optimization for WDM System
Farah Diana Binti Mahad1* and Abu Sahmah Bin Mohd Supa’at2
1Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor, Malaysia.
2Department of Optic and Telematic Engineering , Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310
UTM Skudai, Johor, Malaysia.
*Corresponding author: farahdianamahad@yahoo.com, Tel: 607-5535205, Fax: 607-5566272
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Abstract: The gain flatness of erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) is a key device for wavelength division multiplexing
(WDM) application in modern optical network systems. The purpose of this paper is to correct the gain non-uniformity for
each channel in order to equalize the amplitude gain in a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) system. The system is
simulated using Optisystem software to achieve gain flatness of EDFA through optimized fiber length and pump power. The
gains are flattened within 24±0.299dB from 1546nm to 1558nm band of wavelength with noise figure (NF) <6dB and bit
error rate (BER) <10-9 for 16-channels simultaneous amplification in a single stage EDFA. A WDM system which includes
an EDFA is modeled and obtained maximum uniformed gains.
Keywords: EDFA, gain flatness, fiber length, pump power, WDM
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1. INTRODUCTION
EDFA is an optical amplifier that uses a doped optical
fiber as a gain medium to amplify an optical signal. The
signal which is to be amplified and a pump laser are
multiplexed into the doped fiber, and the signal is
amplified through interaction with the doping ions. EDFA
is the best known and most frequently used optical
amplifier suited to low loss optical window of sil