Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE
Noise properties in optically distributed Raman amplifiers using a semiclassical model
Philippe B. Gallion, Virginie Dallot, Edouard Bridoux
Abstract
Using the semiclassical approach the gain and noise powers, associated to signal and, generated in optical Raman amplifiers, are estimated for forward and backward configurations. Because it combines a corpuscular approach to a phase-amplitude description of the optical field and of the associated noise, this classical formalism allows to identify, to distinguish and to evaluate the respective noise contributions linked, first, to incident fields, such as input zero-point fluctuations, and relative intensity noise associated to the pump, and to the amplifier itself due to the electron momentum fluctuations at the optical frequency. The contribution of Rayleigh backscattering and pump depletion effects are taken into account. For both configurations, the effects of gain and pump power distribution on noise generation are underlined. The determination of the origin and of the amount of intensity noise at the output constitutes a first step toward the amplification of signal with reduced noise amount in Raman amplifiers.