Abstract

Optical gain control (OGC) has been successfully demonstrated in erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) which are practically homogeneous. However, EDFAs are not purely homogeneous and the spectral hole burning (SHB) of the OGC laser results in gain tilt as the OGC laser power changes, if the OGC cavity loss is fixed. In this work, a saturable absorber is placed in the OGC laser cavity to adjust the cavity loss dynamically and to reduce the SHB caused gain tilt. Experimental results show a 0.9-dB reduction of the gain error with a saturable absorber in the OGC cavity.

© 1999 Optical Society of America