Verfahren und Gerät zur Überwachung der Rauschzahl eines optischen Verstärkers

摘要

A method and an apparatus for monitoring the noise figure of the optical amplifier, capable of reducing the size and the cost of the apparatus and simplifying the calculations required in the method, while improving the accuracy of the obtained noise figure. The noise figure can be calculated by approximating the optical power of the ASE light generated by the optical amplifier (31a) at an output side of a linear repeater (30) in a vicinity of the wavelength of the input signal light by the optical power of the ASE (Amplified Spontaneous Emission) light generated by the optical amplifier in a vicinity of a central transmission wavelength displaced from the wavelength of the input signal light. The approximated noise figure can be calculated as a linear function of the gain of the optical amplifier and the optical power of the ASE light generated at the optical amplifier (31a) such that the calculation of the approximated noise figure only involves the arithmetic calculations that can be executed by an analog processing circuit.