Dynamic-channel-equalizer using in-line channel power monitor and electronic variable optical attenuator

We propose and demonstrate a polarization-insensitive dynamic-channel-equalizer (DCE) for compensating erbium-doped-fiber-amplifier (EDFA) amplified signals after dynamic optical add/drop. The DCE can be monolithically integrated on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform and is potentially low cost and compact. The DCE can compensate complicated gain slope shape, which may be generated in cascaded EDFAs or deliberate channel add/drop, based on individual channel equalization. Fifteen-decibel receiver sensitivity improvement at 10 Gb/s bit-error-rate (BER) measurement of 10−9 was achieved in the compensated channel by removing cross-gain-modulation generated by neighboring channel add/drop.