Accurately control and flatten gain spectrum of L-band erbium doped fiber amplifier based on suitable gain-clamping

The increasing traffic with dynamic nature requires the applications of gain-clamped L-band erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA). However, the weak or over clamping may lead the unexpected gain-compression and flatness-worsening. In this article, to enhance practicality, we modify the partly gain-clamping configuration and utilize a pair of C-band fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) to non-uniformly compress the gain spectrum of L-band. Through a comprehensive test and comparison, the suitable gain-clamping region for the amplified signals is found, and the gain in L-band is accurately controlled and flattened under the matched central wavelength of FBGs. The experimental results show that, our designed L-band EDFA achieves a trade-off among the output gain, flatness and stability. The ±0.44 dB flatness and 20.2 dB average gain are together obtained in the range of 1570-1610 nm, with the ±0.1 dB stability of signals in over 30 dBm dynamic range.