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Gain saturation : |
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Gain in EDFA is achieved due to population inversion of dopant ions. As there are limited number of dopant ions, increasing pumping power to a level at which all the dopant are excited will not increase the population of the excited level any further and the gain saturation will take place. Further as the input signal power increases, inversion level reduces and there will be no further amplification. The maximum output power beyond which no amplification occurs is called gain saturation. |
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The behaviour is different from that of electronic amplifiers where the gain curve is linear till saturation abruptly occurs. This results in signal distortion for an electronic amplifier that is operated near saturation point. |
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