Abstract

There is growing interest in using distributed erbium doped fiber (EDF) amplifiers in long-haul transmission due to its low amplified spontaneous emission and applicability to soliton transmission. Lossless [1-4] and dispersion free [2,4] transmission is possible using dispersion shifted fiber doped with distributed erbium. One ultimate limitation to this long-haul transmission using distributed EDFAs is double Rayleigh backscattering (DRB). DRB along the distributed EDF is expected to be larger than DRB along standard single mode fibers both because distributed EDFs are effectively lossless and because Rayleigh backscattering will be increased because a dispersion shifted fiber is likely more heavily doped than standard single mode fiber [5]. In this paper, this limitation will be investigated for the first time.

© 1994 Optical Society of America