Performance of erbium-doped fiber amplifier cascades in WDM multiple access lightwave networks

A simple method to optimize individual EDFA performance parameters for multiwavelength operation in an amplifier cascade is presented. The pump power, pump wavelength, erbium-doped fiber length, and input signal levels and their spectral range are each optimized. We find that 980-nm pumping, together with an optimum amplifier length of 9 m, provides adequate performance for six 10 Gb/s WDM channels to be transmitted through a cascade of 27 amplifiers, allowing a total system gain of more than 350 dB without requiring gain equalization methods.>