Effect of a Midway Isolator on the Performance
of Two-Stage S-Band EDFA

S. W. Harun¹, N. K. Saat², and H. Ahmad²

¹ Faculty of Engineering, Multimedia University, Jalan Multimedia, 63100 Cyberjaya, Selangor, Malaysia

² Photonics Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

e-mail: wadi@mmu.edu.my

Received January 18, 2005

Abstract—The effect of employing a midway isolator in a two-stage short-wavelength-band erbium-doped
fiber amplifier (S-band EDFA) is demonstrated. The gain and the noise figure are improved for the system with
a midway isolator as compared to the system without a midway isolator. These improvements are attributed to
the suppression of the backward-propagating ASE. For an amplifier with a midway isolator, the small signal
gain can reach approximately 30 dB, which is about 15 dB higher than in the system without the midway iso-
lator, and the saturated power can be up to 12 dBm for an input power of 0 dBm. Noise figure reductions of
about 1.2 to 2.8 dB are obtained in the input signal power region from –40 to –8 dBm with the midway isolator.

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