IEC 61290-4-1:2016 applies to optical amplifiers (OAs) using active fibres (optical fibre amplifiers (OFAs)) containing rare-earth dopants including erbium-doped fibre amplifiers (EDFAs) and optically amplified elementary sub-systems. These amplifiers are commercially available and widely deployed in service provider networks. The object of document is to provide the general background for OFA transients and related parameters, and to describe a standard test method for accurate and reliable measurement of the following transient parameters:
- channel addition or removal transient gain overshoot and transient net gain overshoot;
- channel addition or removal transient gain undershoot and transient net gain undershoot;
- channel addition or removal gain offset;
- channel addition or removal transient gain response time constant (settling time). This second edition cancels and replaces the first edition published in 2011. This edition constitutes a technical revision. This edition includes the following significant technical changes with respect to the previous edition:
- extended the applicability from only EDFAs to all OFAs;
- updated definitions for consistency with other documents in the IEC 61290-4 series. Keywords: optical amplifiers (OAs), optical fibre amplifiers (OFAs), rare-earth dopants, erbium-doped fibre amplifiers