Tunable coherent optical transversal EDFA gain equalization

In this paper, we propose a fiber amplifier gain equalizer using a coherent optical transversal filter. The gain equalizer is tunable and has a bandwidth in the order of 30 nm. We also study the effects of different parameters such as input signal power pattern and the input pump power on the gain profile of the amplifier. The results show that, when the input signal power pattern changes, the amplifier does not maintain its gain profile. The gain profile has to be maintained in order to make the gain equalization effective. We show that, the pump input power can be adjusted so that the changes in the gain profile are compensated for. The gain profile varies quite slowly, hence compensation is feasible. As an example, we discuss the design of a gain equalizer for a system consisting of seven wavelength channels