Wideband EDFA utilizing short-length high concentration erbium-doped fiber

In this paper, we experimentally investigate the performance of an efficient high gain wideband erbium-doped fiber amplifier that operates in conventional and long wavelength communication windows utilizing short-length high-concentration erbium doped fiber (EDF). The performance of the amplifier is characterized and optimized for different performance parameters such as gain and noise figure for different input signal power, signal wavelength and pump power. An optical filter and C/L coupler are used to reduce the self-saturation effect and suppress the C-band amplified spontaneous emission noise. The amplifier achieves a signal gain of 52 dB with a low noise figure of 3.8 dB at -50 dBm input signal power using a single pump source with only 8 m of EDF length. An acceptable gain flatness of for the L-band signals, ranging from 1570 nm to 1610 nm is achieved.