Features

• Polarization Maintaining: Amplifies Only One Polarization State
• Available with Either PM or SM Fiber Pigtails (1.5 m)
• FC/APC Connectors
• High Gain (21 dB) and High Saturation Power (9 dBm)
• AR-Coated Endfaces (R < 0.1%)
• Typical Applications: Boosting Laser Transmitters, Widely Tunable Lasers, 1064 nm Optical Preamplifier

Booster Optical Amplifiers (BOAs) are single-pass, traveling-wave amplifiers that perform well with both monochromatic and multi-wavelength signals. Since BOAs only amplify one state of polarization, they are best suited for applications where the input polarization of the light is known. The BOA consists of a highly efficient GaAs/InGaAs Quantum Well (QW) layer structure, designed for amplifying polarized optical signals in the 1050 nm band and is also an ideal gain medium for implementing wide-bandwidth tunable lasers.

For a full specification list, please see the Specs and Performance Plots tabs above.

As seen in the schematic to the right, the input and output of the amplifier is coupled to the reliable ridge waveguide on the optical amplifier chip. The device is contained in a standard 14-pin butterfly package, with single mode fiber pigtails terminated with FC/APC connectors. The BOA1137P utilizes polarization-maintaining PM980 fiber, while the BOA1137S uses non-polarization-maintaining HI1060 fiber. An integrated thermistor allows these BOAs to be temperature controlled, thus stabilizing the gain and the spectrum.

Driver Option
The CLD1015 butterfly LD/TEC controller is one possible controller for these amplifiers. The LD/TEC controller and mount combination offers full control via a touch screen.

BOA1137S and BOA1137P Performance

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Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers (SOAs and BOAs) are similar in design to Fabry-Perot Laser Diodes. The difference being that Fabry-Perot laser diodes have reflective coatings on both end faces of the semiconductor chip. The optical feedback from the end faces establishes a cavity in which lasing can occur. SOAs and BOAs have an anti-reflection (AR) coating on both end faces of the semiconductor chip. The AR coatings limit the optical feedback into the chip so that lasing does not occur.

As is typical for all amplifiers, SOA/BOAs operate in two regimes: a linear, flat, constant gain regime and a non-linear, saturated output regime. When used to amplify a modulated signal, the linear regime is typically used to eliminate pattern-dependent distortion, multi-channel cross-talk and transient response issues common to EDFAs. The non-linear regime is used to take advantage of the highly non-linear attributes of the semiconductor gain medium (cross-gain modulation, cross phase modulation) to perform wavelength conversion, optical 3R regeneration, header recognition, and other high-speed optical signal processing functions.

For a CW input signal, the amount of power that can be produced by the amplifier is determined by the saturation output power (P_sat) parameter. P_sat is defined as the output power at which the small-signal gain has been compressed by 3 dB. The maximum amount of CW power that can be extracted is approximately 3 dB higher than the saturation power.