A TRANSPARENT OPTICAL BUS USING A CHAIN OF REMOTELY PUMPED ERBIUM-DOPED FIBER AMPLIFIERS

A transparent optical bus using a chain of remotely pumped erbium-doped fiber amplifiers is proposed and demonstrated in a four-station implementation. An analytical model which predicts the required parameters for the remotely pumped EDFA's at each station was developed. A maximum signal power variation of 0.3 dB is measured experimentally for each station, in good agreement with the model prediction. Experimental results indicate that the bus can potentially support up to 40 WDM channels, as limited by remotely pumped amplifier saturation.