Optimization of Hybrid Optical Amplifiers for Enhanced WDM Efficiency

Abstract

The growing demand for high-speed optical communication presents challenges for Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) networks in maintaining signal quality over long distances. Traditional optical amplifiers, such as the Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifier (EDFA), Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (SOA), and Raman amplifier, each have limitations; including narrow gain bandwidth, increased noise, and performance degradation. A critical gap remains in optimizing hybrid optical amplifier (HOA) configurations and understanding how amplifier placement affects transmission efficiency. This study focused on the design and optimization of HOA to enhance WDM efficiency. EDFA and Raman amplifiers were optimized using Optisystem 7, SPSS and Python. The study evaluates different hybrid configurations, including EDFA-Raman and Raman-EDFA, based on performance such as gain, noise figure (NF), Optical Signal to noise ratio (OSNR), and bit error rate (BER). At short distances (25km), EDFA-Raman outperformed Raman-EDFA significantly. Q-factor of EDFA-Raman is 521.90 and Raman-EDFA is 307.90. EDFA's strong initial amplification provided a cleaner, high-quality signal with minimal noise. At 100km, the gap remained, but Raman-EDFA was more stable, with EDFA-Raman dropping by 67.48% while Raman-EDFA declined by only 54.49%.  The findings demonstrated that hybrid configurations outperform individual amplifiers, offering improved gain stability and reduced signal degradation over extended distances.