Research On Power Control Technology Of Pump Laser Drive Source Of EDFA

Erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) plays an important role to the development of the fiber communication towards higher power, longer distance and higher speed. With the increasing application of EDFA, specializations on its performance are more and more rigid, especially on the steadiness of the output power. Among them, the most influential factor is the performance of the pump laser.This article firstly performed an analysis on the theoretical fundamentals of the EDFA and pump laser, including their mechanism, configuration, characteristic parameters, and a comparison of two methods:automatic current control and automatic power control. Photoelectric detectors were employed to measure the current of input signal, followed by a microcontroller which processes the data and controls a digital potentiometer to adjust the driving current of the pump laser, assuring the steadiness of the output power. A temperature control circuit is also designed to antagonize the influence of temperature. Test results of the experiment proved that our system basically meets the requirement.