An SOA based optical preamplifier with the automatic gain/loss controlled circuit for wide input dynamic range

摘要

We developed an optical preamplifier based on a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) with an automatic gain and loss controlled circuit. This preamplifier has both functions of an amplifier and an attenuator. We adopted the feedback configuration due to detecting the averaged power. This configuration enables the stabilization of the SOA output level without depending on the transmission speed. By setting up this preamplifier in front of conventional optical receiver, we attained the wide input-dynamic range of 30 dB for error-free operations.