Investigation of EDFA Performance in DWDM Transmission Systems Under Different Operating Conditions

The article investigates dependence of EDFA performance on its operating conditions. First of all, the impact of changes in channel spacing on the quality of the amplifier signal and on the desired EDFA configuration is observed – three different values of channel spacing are considered – 37.5 GHz, 50 GHz and 100 GHz. Afterwards, the impact of EDFA positioning on the quality of the amplified signal and the desired configuration is assessed. Three different EDFA positioning scenarios are considered – when the EDFA is used as a power booster, as an in-line amplifier and as a preamplifier. In all cases, such configuration of the EDFA is found that can ensure bit-error ratio (BER) values below 1·10⁻⁹ in all channels of the system. To assess the performance of the amplifiers, power penalty values are obtained in respect to identical transmission systems but without amplification.