All-Optical AGC of EDFA Based on SOA

We propose a novel all-optical method for automatic gain controlling of transients in erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) using a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA)-based negative feedback loop for adjusting the EDFA pump power. A dynamic model for the EDFA-SOA system is developed and used for numerical simulation of the transient behavior of this system. Simulation results for EDFA-SOA performance of the proposed method are presented. It is shown that using this method, it is possible to significantly reduce the transient effects, without producing power oscillations on the surviving channels