A Novel Bidirectional Optical Add-Drop Multiplexer with Gain Incorporating a Single Unidirectional Amplifier

Abstract

A bidirectional optical add-drop multiplexer (BOADM) was presented with gain using multiport optical circulators (OC), fiber Bragg gratings (FBG) and a single unidirectional amplifier. The device could be used in networks with arbitary wavelength assignment schemes and effective arrangements of OC ports and FBG allowed for the bidirectional signals to flow unidirectionally through the device. The structure removed Rayleigh backscattering light, reflected light, out-of-band amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) and a good crosstalk performance. It was found that the device had potentially low cost, low crosstalk and could flexibly accommodate asymmetric traffic.