Investigation of a highly suitable optical amplifier (EDFA/Raman) for a 10 × 10 Gbps WDM system using different optical signal power levels

Abstract For effective communication in a long-reach passive optical network, there is a need for a cost-effective system for the regeneration of a signal. Optical amplifiers are one of the appropriate solutions for this. With keeping this scenario in mind, A highly reliable architecture of a 10 × 10 Gbps WDM system is analyzed using two different optical amplifiers erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) and a Raman amplifier. The performance of two amplifiers, EDFA and Raman, is investigated at different power levels, 4 dB m, 8 dB m, and 10 dB m, over variable lengths of fiber, 50 km, 70 km, 90 km, 120 km, and 150 km. Q-factor, BER, jitter, eye diagrams, and optical spectra are considered as performance metrics for two amplifiers. 10 Gbps data is successfully transmitted over 10 channels having different frequencies ranging between 192.966 THz and 193.86 THz. The downlink transmission of data is done using a wavelength of 1,550 nm. Results show that EDFA is superior to Raman in terms of gain at a lower level of signal power. Whereas Raman is superior to EDFA at higher power in terms of noise. A maximum Q-factor of 30.62 and a minimum BER of 1 × 10 −40 , is achieved by using EDFA at 4 dB m over 50 km.