Gain dynamics of EDFA in loop buffer switch

This paper studies the gain dynamics of the Erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) in the loop buffer based switch. The gain excursion of the EDFA is measured for different length packets, and in the analysis asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), and the key to all optical packet switching (KEOPS) packet size is considered. The effect of the packet inter arrival time on the gain is also measured. The effect of loop length and data rate is discussed in the gain dynamics of the EDFA. It is shown in the paper that the loop buffer structure acts as an optical cavity where the signal can lase, remain transparent or it can decay with a number of recirculations. In this paper, three gain controlling schemes proposed in recent past, for the loop buffer based architectures are discussed and it is found that none of these schemes can provide a robust solution, as these schemes are developed under simplifying assumptions which are not true once the design aspects of the loop buffer switch are considered. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.