Integrated Cladding-Pumped Multicore Few-Mode Erbium-Doped Fibre Amplifier For Space-Division-Multiplexed Communications

Abstract

Space-division multiplexing (SDM), whereby multiple spatial channels in multimode and multicore optical fibres are used to increase the total transmission capacity per fibre, is being investigated to avert a data capacity crunch and reduce the cost per transmitted bit. With the number of channels employed in SDM transmission experiments continuing to rise, there is a requirement for integrated SDM components that are scalable. Here, we demonstrate a cladding-pumped SDM erbium-doped fibre amplifier (EDFA) that consists of six uncoupled multimode erbium-doped cores. Each core supports three spatial modes, which enables the EDFA to amplify a total of 18 spatial channels (six cores × three modes) simultaneously with a single pump diode and a complexity similar to a single-mode EDFA. The amplifier delivers >20 dBm total output power per core and <7 dB noise figure over the C-band. This cladding-pumped EDFA enables combined space-division and wavelength-division multiplexed transmission over multiple multimode fibre spans.

Publication Date

8-1-2016

Publication Title

Nature Photonics

Volume

10

Issue

8

Number of Pages

529-533

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2016.125

Socpus ID

84978166256 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84978166256

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