Abstract

Pumping erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) near 980 nm has attracted much attention as a result of the lower noise characteristics and higher pump efficiency achieved compared to those obtained at 1480nm. The narrow absorption profile of the fiber at the 980nm pump band is generally believed to impose a tight constraint on the laser operating wavelength. Recent results for small-signal amplification with pump powers of ≈30mW revealed a gain reduction of ≤3dB for pump wavelengths varying by 30nm, a bandwidth which is significantly larger than that of the 980nm absorption band [1]. By reducing the cost of the pump lasers, this relaxed tolerance is expected to lower the overall cost of the EDFA as well as reduce the impact of temperature-induced wavelength drifts in the pump laser.

© 1992 Optical Society of America