Abstract

Evidence of Erbium-ion pair formation in silica-glass EDFAs has recently been presented [1], [2]. In a pair, the lifetime of the state where both ions are excited (doubly excited state) is exceedingly short, so that one ion in the pair is effectively quenched for pump powers below the pair saturation power in the order of a watt [1], and the population of the paired ions cannot be fully inverted. Thus the effect, called Pair-Induced Quenching (PIQ), leads to non-saturable absorption [1], as well as to degradation of EDFA performance. A resulting gain reduction was calculated in [2].

© 1993 Optical Society of America