Few-mode erbium-doped fiber amplifier based on a multi-inclusions core optical fiber

In this work, we demonstrate and evaluate a new design of micro-structured core erbium-doped few-mode fiber to be used as optical amplifier in the context of mode-division multiplexing. This concept is proposed so as to better control the distribution of the Er³⁺ ions in the core area, thus permitting to adjust the overall differential modal gains between the different signal modes. The design presented here consists of 19 erbium-doped inclusions embedded in a pedestal geometry guiding 10 modes in the C-band. It has been optimized numerically so as to reach the equalized amplification of all the signal modes. The fiber has been realized and combined with custom-made dual-wavelength mode multiplexers based on multi-plane light conversion to shape the signal and pump beams. Amplification properties have finally been evaluated experimentally.