Lots of research efforts have been devoted to increase the transmission capacity in optical communications using orbital angular momentum (OAM) multiplexing. To enable long-haul OAM mode transmission, an in-line OAM fiber amplifier is desired. A ring-core fiber (RCF) is considered to be a preferable design for stable OAM mode propagation in the fiber. Here, we demonstrate an OAM fiber amplifier based on a fabricated ring-core erbium-doped fiber (RC-EDF). We characterize the performance of the RC-EDF-assisted OAM fiber amplifier and demonstrate its use in OAM multiplexing communications with OAM modes carrying quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) and quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signals. The amplification of two OAM modes over four wavelengths is demonstrated in a data-carrying OAM-division multiplexing and wavelength-division multiplexing system. The obtained results show favorable performance of the RC-EDF-assisted OAM fiber amplifier. These demonstrations may open up new perspectives for long-haul transmission in capacity scaling fiber-optic communications employing OAM modes.
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