Erbium-doped fiber amplifier with 54 dB gain and 3.1 dB noisefigures

It is shown that for practical pump powers (<100 mW) a combination of high gain (>33 dB) and low noise figure (3 dB) cannot simultaneously be achieved with a conventional codirectionally pumped EDFA. However, using a codirectionally pumped composite EDFA incorporating an isolator overcomes the problem, and an amplifier with 51 dB (54 dB) gain and 3.1 dB noise figure (NF) for only 45 mW (93 mW) of pump power is demonstrated