Transmission edge filters for power equalization of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers

Summary form only given.Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) are indispensable tools for providing optical amplification in wavelength-division-multiplexed systems. Of current research interest are techniques for providing power equalization in EDFAs to compensate fluctuations in the power levels of the incoming signals (in order to minimize large differences in the signal power and signal-to-noise ratios among the different channels). Several different techniques, including those involving some form of variable attenuation for each of the input wavelength channels, have been considered. In this paper, we demonstrate that use of transmission edge filters based on apodized linearly chirped fiber Bragg gratings to provide the variable attenuation required for power equalization.