2.5 Gb s x 16-channel bidirectional WDM transmission system using bidirectional erbium-doped fiber amplifier based on spectrally interleaved synchronized etalon filters

Abstract

We implemented a bidirectional erbium-doped fiber amplifier using two spectrally interleaved synchronized etalon filters. This amplifier was used to demonstrate 2.5 Gb/s x 16-channel bidirectional wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) transmission over 160-km-long single mode fiber. No power penalty was observed in receiver sensitivity caused by relative intensity noise, In addition, we measured the performance of the concatenated amplifiers using a recirculating loop, The results show that it would be possible to use the proposed amplifier for the transmission of bidirectional WDM signals over seven amplifier spans (similar to 560 km) with a span loss of 20 dB.