| 摘要 |
The present invention provides an optically-amplified bi-directional optical add-drop multiplexer (Fig. 4) for a bi-directional (5) WDM optical communication system including two counter-propagating WDM optical signals. Each counter propagating WDM signal enters the bi-directional add-drop multiplexer and is placed on an optical path, which does not include the other WDM optical signal. Each WDM optical signal may be amplified (310,320) and have one or more optical channels added to or dropped from the respective signal. In an exemplary embodiment, one of the bi-directional WDM signals includes optical channels located in the C-band of an EDFA while the other bi-directional WDM signal includes optical channels located in the L-band of and EDFA. In this manner, an optical amplifier (310) particularly selected for channels in a particular gain region may separately amplify each the separated bi-directional WDM signals. Each counter-propagating WDM signal exits the bi-directional add-drop multiplexed and rejoins the bi-directional optical waveguide.
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