Fault tolerant optical amplifier arrangement
First Claim
Patent Images
1. Optical amplification apparatus comprising:
- a plurality of doped fiber optical amplifiers, each responsive to a first optical pump beam;
a plurality of pump light sources, each for generating a second optical pump beam substantially at a pump wavelength; and
means optically connecting the plurality of light sources to the plurality of optical amplifiers for distributing a predetermined portion of the power of each second optical pump beam to each optical amplifier so that each first optical pump beam is substantially at the pump wavelength and includes the predetermined portion of each second optical pump beam from the plurality of light sources.
4 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
For a group of optical amplifiers, pump beams from an array of lasers are mixed together to form a plurality of composite pump beams. Each composite pump beam is distributed to the pump port of a particular optical amplifier. The composite pump beam improves the reliability of each optical amplifier. Rather than having catastrophic failure of an optical amplifier occasioned by the failure of its pump laser, it is now possible to maintain full operation of the group of optical amplifiers even though one or more lasers fail.
70 Citations
15 Claims
-
1. Optical amplification apparatus comprising:
-
a plurality of doped fiber optical amplifiers, each responsive to a first optical pump beam; a plurality of pump light sources, each for generating a second optical pump beam substantially at a pump wavelength; and means optically connecting the plurality of light sources to the plurality of optical amplifiers for distributing a predetermined portion of the power of each second optical pump beam to each optical amplifier so that each first optical pump beam is substantially at the pump wavelength and includes the predetermined portion of each second optical pump beam from the plurality of light sources. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
-
-
8. Optical amplification apparatus comprising:
-
a plurality of light sources, each for generating an input light beam substantially at a pump wavelength; a plurality of input waveguides, each coupled to receive one of the input light beams; a plurality of output waveguides; a combining region disposed between the plurality of input waveguides and the plurality of output waveguides for mixing the plurality of input light beams so that a plurality of output light beams is formed substantially at the pump wavelength and coupled into the plurality of output waveguides; and a plurality of doped fiber optical amplifiers, each having an input port for receiving the light beam from a different one of the plurality of output waveguides. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
-
-
14. Optical amplification apparatus comprising:
-
a plurality of pumped doped fiber optical amplifiers, a plurality of pump light sources each for generating a pump light beam, and means for optically connecting the plurality of pump light sources to the plurality of pumped optical amplifiers in such a way that a portion of the power of each pump beam is distributed to each pumped optical amplifier. - View Dependent Claims (15)
-
Specification