Erbium-doped fiber optical source for an IFOG: spectrum dependence on the pump wavelength

An erbium-doped optical fiber source (EDFS) can meet the requirements of a range of applications, e.g., for high-performance interferometric fiber-optic gyroscopes (IFOGs). However, a versatile mathematical model to study different setup configurations and flexible enough to set the parameters function is not available in the literature. Therefore, in this work, a mathematical model based on rate equations was developed to investigate an EDFS pumped by a laser at 980, 1480 nm, or both wavelengths simultaneously. An open-source computer code based on this mathematical model was developed, and simulations were generated to achieve spectra, output power, mean wavelength, and effective bandwidth for the forward and backward directions, which were compared with experimental results for validation. The results show that the mathematical model is a powerful tool to describe the general behavior of the EDFS and can be used to evaluate and design it according to technical requirements.