C-plus L-band EDFA with over 70 nm operating range

This paper presents a wideband silica-based EDFA design operating in both the C-band and the L-band region. The amplifier design is made of a dual stage, co-pumped at 980 nm which delivers an average output power of 10.4 dBm over the entire 3 dB bandwidth of 72 nm at 0 dBm input power representing 100 WDM channels at -20 dBm/ch. An average gain of noise figure (NF) of 5.6 dB was obtained for the entire operating bandwidth of 1528 nm to 1600 nm when pumped at 980 nm. Power conversion efficiency (PCE), high of 8.6% was obtained from this wideband EDFA design.