Comparison between regenerative-feedback and cofeedback gain-clamped EDFA

The erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) with regenerative feedback is compared with the cofeedback scheme. Without the bandpass filter, the injected signal experiences regenerative amplification and results in a higher signal gain. Such an above-threshold regenerative amplifier also exhibits a lower noise figure due to a higher inversion for the transition corresponding to the signal wavelength of 1550 nm. A near quantum-limited noise figure of 3.1 dB is achieved at the maximum pump power of 134.5 mW, showing nearly complete inversion at the EDF input end in the regenerative-feedback scheme. A low (<10/sup -10/) bit-error rate has been achieved with saturation input signal power above -12 dBm.