Two-stage optical limiting fiber amplifier using a synchronized etalon filter

We demonstrate a two-stage optical limiting erbium-doped fiber amplifier (OLA) using an interstage synchronized etalon filter and an isolator. The proposed OLA shows higher gain, lower noise figure, and wider dynamic range (>30 dB) than conventional two-stage erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) with an interstage isolator. In addition, this OLA is well suited for the use in wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) networks since the synchronized etalon filter has multiple passbands at the standardized WDM wavelengths.