Distortion compensation in optically amplified lightwave communication systems
US6671466B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Jul 20, 1999 |
| Grant date | Dec 30, 2003 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jul 20, 2019 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04B10/296
- WIPO fieldTelecommunications
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Distortion and crosstalk that occurs when operating optical amplifiers in saturation is substantially reduced by passively compensating for gain variations caused by changes in input power to the optical amplifiers. More specifically, in an optical communication system having one or more optical amplifiers, a “reservoir” optical channel is supplied in addition to the other traffic-carrying optical channels. The wavelength of the reservoir channel is selected such that the power level of the reservoir channel varies in response to changes in power levels of the traffic-carrying channels. Because gain variations are typically highest around the gain peak region in an optical amplifier's gain bandwidth, the reservoir channel in one exemplary embodiment is assigned a wavelength around the gain peak region. As such, the reservoir channel can absorb or otherwise receive most of the distortion and crosstalk while the traffic-carrying channels located away from the gain peak region will experience less distortion and crosstalk. -Importantly, this passive compensation scheme can be used in an amplified system which is operating in the presence of nonlinear distortions caused by …
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.