Wideband Amplification for the Next Generation of Optical Transport Networks

The data transmission over optical channels in wideband systems is an important alternative to increase the capacity of the current optical transport networks without a significant increase in implementation and operational costs. However, to allow these systems to achieve long-reach transmissions, the development of appropriate optical amplifiers to provide high gain with low noise insertion in each new optical band to be explored is a crucial step. This work briefly describes the main technological alternatives with suitable performance and complexity for high-capacity optical links in the extended C+L band, including fiber-doped, Raman-based, and semiconductor optical amplifiers. The amplifiers' characteristics, most common use cases, design and optimization methodology based on Artificial Intelligence techniques, as well implementation and commercial challenges are discussed in this paper.