Experimental Measurement of Absorption Coefficients for Effective Erbium-Doping Concentration to Optimize Few-Mode Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers with Low Differential Mode Gain

Abstract

According to the analytical expression for modal gain of few-mode erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (FM-EDFAs), we propose a method of measuring the absorption loss coefficients of few-mode signals in few-mode erbium-doped fibers (FM-EDFs) by extrapolating the mode–gain curve dependent on the average population inversion. The absorption loss coefficient of an FM-EDF was measured in our experimental platform and used to estimate the effective erbium-ion doping concentration. The feasibility of the extrapolation method was verified by simulation and comparison with the transmission method. Furthermore, the FM-EDFAs with high modal gain and low differential mode gain (DMG) could be optimized by adjusting the FM-EDF’s length and pump power. The analysis process presented here is very useful for the efficient design of FM-EDFAs from a practical point of view.