FIELD STATISTICS MODELING OF BEAT NOISE IN AN OPTICAL AMPLIFIER

The authors present a rigorous and self-contained noise analysis of an optical amplifier based on the statistics of the input source field a nd the amplified spontaneous emission field of the amplifier. The meth od enables us to obtain the frequency dependence of the output electri cal noise power, which has not been derived in previous studies of opt ical amplifier noise based on the photon statistics master equation. T he authors characterise for the first time the noise of an optical amp lifier in combination with a superfluorescent source, taking into acco unt the frequency dependence of the gain and the presence of optional optical filters.