Abstract

Distributed fiber Raman amplifiers (DFRA’s) have recently been extensively studied for their capability to upgrade the capacity of long haul WDM optical transmission by increasing bandwidth, channel density, and channel speed.^1–3 Since DFRA uses a transmission line as the Raman gain medium, the amplifier characteristics strongly depend on the attenuation of the transmission line. The OTDR measurements of the installed fibers in Korea between optical line amplifier (OLA) sites showed that the localized loss caused by splice points and fiber connector-ized points were mostly located near OLA sites. Since the Raman pump modules for DFRA’s are deployed at OLA sites, this localized loss may significantly affect the performance of DFRA.

© 2002 Optical Society of America