Guided Wave Optical Components and Devices

CHAPTER 12

Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers for Dynamic Optical Networks

Atul Srivastava^* and Yan Sun,     Onetta/Bookham Technology, Morganville, New Jersey, USA

1 INTRODUCTION

Lightwave networks are evolving from centrally planned provisioned circuits to intelligent dynamic network elements supporting point and click provisioning and simplified operations with reduced capital and operational costs. In recent years, the emphasis of lightwave networks has shifted from point-to-point line system to a more two-dimensional architecture involving multiwavelength networking capability [1] via optical add/drop multiplexers and optical cross-connects, as illustrated in Fig. 12.1. Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) are a key element of these wavelength ...