Improvement of differential modal gain in few-mode fibre amplifier by employing ring-core erbium-doped fibre

Abstract

The differential modal gain (DMG) in a few-mode erbium-doped fibre amplifier (FM-EDFA) is successfully improved by employing a ringcore FM erbium-doped fibre (RC-EDF). The DMGs between LP01 and LP11 mode signals in the FM-EDFA with the RC-EDF are 1.8 and 1.6 dB for LP01 and LP11 mode pumping, respectively, whereas those in a FM-EDFA with a conventional step-index FM EDF are 9.2 and 6.1 dB, indicating 7.4 and 4.5 dB DMG improvement for LP01 and LP11 mode pumping, respectively.