A novel gain-clamped erbium doped fiber amplifier for wavelength division multiplexed systems

Amplification of multiwavelength signals by an erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) is becoming critical, due to the proliferation of wavelength divisi on multiplexed systems. However, when a standard EDFA is employed, the diss imilarities among the signals' gain may prove unacceptable. Thus, a novel g ain-clamped EDFA is proposed here to tackle the issue of gain tilt. The sui tability of the configuration is then investigated through a numerical mode l, which is developed based on the standard EDFA and fiber laser models.