Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers: Fundamentals and Technology (Optics and Photonics) [Hardcover]

Philippe C. Becker (Author), N. Anders Olsson (Author), Jay R. Simpson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0120845903 | ISBN-13: 978-0120845903 | Publication Date: March 22, 1999 | Edition: 1st

Erbium Fiber Amplifiers is a comprehensive introduction to the increasingly important topic of optical amplification. Written by three Bell Labs pioneers, the book stresses the importance of the interrelation of materials properties, optical properties, and systems aspects of optical fiber amplifiers.
The floppy disk included with the book contains a PC based educational version of the sophisticated commercial amplifier simulation package OASIX (sold by the Specialty Fiber Group of Lucent Technologies). This powerful numerical simulation software allows one to simulate the performance of a real erbium fiber amplifier, and obtain its properties such as signal gain and noise generated. Several parameter sets are included, each of which represents a commercially available type of erbium doped fiber usedin different kinds of amplifiers (e.g. preamplifiers and power amplifiers). The user can vary, via Windows based input screens, various amplifier characteristics such as fiber length, pump power, signal power, and additional signals. The output is savedin a file which can be read by any spreadsheet or plotting package for graphical representation of the results. The software allows the reader to explore on his or her own the concepts of amplifier performance discussed in the book, and gain a more intuitive and interactive educational experience leading to a richer understanding of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers and their applications.

Key Features
* Includes a software disk with a PC-based amplifier simulation tool derived from a sophisticated commercial package (OASIX), which allows the reader to gain an interactive educational experience using parameters for commercially available erbium-doped fibers
* Explains the theory of noise in optically amplified systems in an intuitive way
* The book contains a discussion of components used in amplifier fabrication and of the attendant technologies used in real systems
* The book provides basic tools for amplifier design as well as systems engineering, including the latest developments in WDM and soliton systems
* The book discusses the fundamentals of rare earth ions for the reader desiring more depth in the topic
* The book is for either the novice of experienced reader
* The chapter have links between them to allow the reader to understand the relationship between the amplifier characteristics, noise, and systems applications
* The book contains extensive references

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The book provides the reader with insight and understanding for amplifiers and optically amplified communication systems, essential building blocks of today's fiber optic networks."
--Optik 112, No. 1, 2001

From the Back Cover

In the past few years, the use of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers has increased the capacity of fiber optics transmission systems by more than a hundred-fold. These amplifiers allow for the amplification of transmission signals in all optical ways without the need for electronic processing of the signal, which limits the capacity of optical systems. With the recent explosive growth in optical transmission networks, the fiber amplifier has become an essential building block for these networks. Understanding it provides great insight into today's high-capacity fiber networks, their design, and their future evolution.
Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers has been written by early pioneers in the development of fiber amplifier technology and optically amplified systems. The book guides the reader from the most fundamental aspects of fiber amplifiers all the way to system design and applications. The fundamental chapters address the important aspects of noise theory, design, and understanding of optically amplified systems. The coverage is such that the book will be of interest to researchers, practitioners, and students new to the field.
The book can be read as a sequence of linked chapters which build on each other. Since each chapter is relatively self-contained, the reader can also jump in at the desired point of interest and refer to other chapters as needed. Many figures are used to present concepts in an intuitive and understandable way. Numerous references are provided for the reader wishing to delve further into any of the topics covered. With the continued soaring demand for optical transmission networks, the book provides an important base for understanding the technical underpinnings of such networks.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 460 pages
• Publisher: Academic Press; 1st edition (March 22, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0120845903
• ISBN-13: 978-0120845903
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #235,241 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #89 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Physics > Optics

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Becker et. al. v.s Desurvire, November 8, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers: Fundamentals and Technology (Optics and Photonics) (Hardcover)

Evaluating a book often is strongly dependent on the level of expertise and experience of the reviewer, especially in a new field like this. Speaking as one who has been in other areas of science and technology for decades but who has been recently trying to learn this new subject, it is safe to say that both Desurvire's and Becker's book have merit and they complement each other. I found Becker's book much easier reading and a pleasant respite from Desurvire's sometimes incredible density (did he really write that whole thing by himself?), but there are portions of several chapters in Desurvire that are enlightening and reasonably clear even to a novice. The technology of optical amplifiers is probably still maturing and as time goes on new texts on optical amplifiers will be written and they will draw on and improve on these two books both in content and style but for the present these two appear to be necessary for workers in the field. If you are beginner, you might want to start with Becker.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is the book to read if you need to know EDFAs, January 16, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers: Fundamentals and Technology (Optics and Photonics) (Hardcover)

This book is full of practical examples. With respect to ED's book this book is far more practical and has fewer errors. One thing to note on the arguemnt on EDFA proprierty/discovery. The real contributors to the art & science rarely published papers. They designed, built and deployyed the earliest devices and acihieved more understanding of most "paper" writers. Olsen, Becker, and Simpson wrote some of the early papers, but now all hold high positions in innovative srtartups - Becker, VP @ Corvis; Olsen, founder, CTO @ Cenix; Simpson, Key scientist at Ciena. This innovative start up mentality is seen throughout the book. PS: most of the models introduced in ED's book have been subseuently improved and modified (e.g. average inversion model.) I am waiting for some one to write an up to date review of EDFA modeling. Of course my bias would be that the author whould have actually sold/deployeed what he had modeled.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Desurvire versus Becker et al., August 30, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers: Fundamentals and Technology (Optics and Photonics) (Hardcover)

This is to comment on the August 2 review from the reader of San Francisco. First the reviewer states that Becker, Olsson, and Simpson invented the EDFA. How does he know that ? He is completely forgetting the role of Southampton University. Second he stated that Desurvire was a minor contributor paying only attention to the noise figure. Desurvire is very well known and respected in the international scientific community for his great work on EDFAs. Desurvire received the 1998 Benjamin Franklin Medal in engineering for this work. Moreover considering that the noise figure is a minor problem is totally misunderstanding the EDFA itself. Knowing the noise figure is essential for any design of any transmission system, if you do not know it precisely you do not know what you are actually doing. Note that Haus had been invited at OFC'99 and OAA'2000 to discuss only on the noise figure of optical amplifiers, he referred many time to Desurvire's book. By the way the model that is included in the book of Becker et al. is based on the work of Desurvire and Giles (another researcher who did great works on EDFAs). The main point of a start-up is to create new thing, a book going into the heart of a component such as EDFA is therefore essential in this environment. Reading a book discussing only about the applications is fine but only to people who want to have only a general opinion about the component. The chapter on the application of EDFAs in the Desurvire book was published in 1994: lets hope that Desurvire publish soon an updated edition. Finally before putting on the web such statement it is better to check the information first.