Abstract
We investigate polarization insensitive fiber optical parametric amplifiers (FOPAs) employing a balanced polarization diversity loop with at least two unidirectional gain fibers. We describe and compare three variants of looped polarization insensitive FOPAs optimized for noise figure, mitigation of nonlinear impairments and their trade-off, respectively. The test scenario consists of amplifying, by up to 14 dB, a set of 21 × 50 GHz-spaced channels including a 35 GBaud PDM-QPSK signal, and evaluating a power of nonlinear crosstalk, noise figure and amplified signal BER for each variant. For the first time we demonstrate a polarization insensitive FOPA amplifying WDM signals with a noise figure as low as 5.8 dB, and a polarization insensitive FOPA with output WDM signal power of 23 dBm. The testing results let us identify likely application scenarios for each looped FOPA variant. We justify potential implementation of polarization-insensitive FOPAs in future optical communication systems by arguing its ability to deliver low noise figure <6 dB for output signal power as high as 29 dBm and to enable polarization insensitive gain for the most prominent single-polarization FOPA achievements realizing ultrawide high gain.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 6045-6053 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Journal of Lightwave Technology |
Volume | 39 |
Issue number | 19 |
Early online date | 26 Jul 2021 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Oct 2021 |
Bibliographical note
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Funding: This work was supported by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council grants EP/R024057/1 (FPA-ROCS) and EP/M005283/1 (UPON), and by the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship MR/T041218/1.
Keywords
- -Nonlinear optics
- Gain
- Nonlinear optics
- Optical attenuators
- Optical fiber amplifiers
- Optical fiber communication
- Optical parametric amplifiers
- Optical polarization
- Wavelength division multiplexing
- Wavelength-division multiplexing