Open AccessImproved WDM performance of a fibre optical parametric amplifier using Raman-assisted pumping
Author(s) -
M. F. C. Stephens,
Ian Phillips,
Paweł Rosa,
Paul Harper,
Nick Doran
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.23.000902
Subject(s) - optics , raman amplification , optical amplifier , parametric statistics , wavelength division multiplexing , materials science , optical parametric amplifier , amplifier , four wave mixing , net gain , crosstalk , wavelength , optoelectronics , nonlinear optics , physics , laser , mathematics , statistics , cmos
We experimentally demonstrate a Raman-Assisted Fibre Optical Parametric Amplifier (RA-FOPA) with 20dB net gain using wavelength division multiplexed signals. We report amplification of 10x58Gb/s 100GHz-spaced QPSK signals and show that by appropriate tuning of the parametric pump power and frequency, gain improvement of up to 5dB can be achieved for the RA-FOPA compared with combined individual contributions from the parametric and Raman pumps. We compare the RA-FOPA with an equivalent-gain conventional FOPA and find that four-wave mixing crosstalk is substantially reduced by up to 5.8 ± 0.4dB using the RA-FOPA. Worst-case performance penalty of the RA-FOPA is found to be only 1.0 ± 0.2dB over all measured OSNRs, frequencies and input powers, making it an attractive proposal for future communications systems.