An optical amplifier that amplifies an incident WDM signal and includes cores having an amplification medium, the optical amplifier includes: a wavelength demultiplexer configured to demultiplex the incident WDM signal into wavelength bands and introducing the demultiplexed WDM signals into the cores separately; a wavelength multiplexer configured to multiplex amplified optical signals propagated through the cores and outputting the multiplexed signal; and an wavelength demultiplexing controller configured to monitor an amplification rate of a specific wavelength band of an amplified WDM signal or a scale associated with an amplification rate of a specific wavelength band, demultiplexing, from the incident WDM signal, an optical signal of a wavelength band having relatively-small optical amplification efficiency according to a monitoring result, and controlling demultiplexing performed by the wavelength demultiplexer in such a way as to amplify, with a relatively-large amplification rate, the optical signal of the wavelength band having relatively-small optical amplification efficiency.

An optical signal amplification apparatus includes a power detection module, a pump control module, and a Raman amplification module. The power detection module is configured to detect power of each of a plurality of G wavelength channels in each of a plurality of N spatial dimensions, and send power configuration information to the pump control module. The pump control module is configured to output N channels of pump light, where each channel of pump light includes M pieces of split pump light of different wavelengths, and a proportion of each piece of split pump light in pump light of a corresponding wavelength is determined based on the power configuration information. The Raman amplification module is configured to perform Raman amplification on a space division multiplexed signal in all of the N spatial dimensions by using the N channels of pump light.

An optical reception apparatus (1) of the present invention includes: a local oscillator (11) outputting local oscillation light (22); an optical mixer (12) receiving a multiplexed optical signal (21) and the local oscillation light, and selectively outputting an optical signal (23) corresponding to the wavelength of the local oscillation light from the multiplexed optical signal; a photoelectric converter (13) converting the optical signal (23) output from the optical mixer into an electric signal (24); a variable gain amplifier (15) amplifying the electric signal (24) to generate an output signal (25) whose output amplitude is amplified to a certain level; a gain control signal generating circuit (16) generating a gain control signal (26) for controlling the gain of the variable gain amplifier (15); and a monitor signal generating unit (17) generating a monitor signal (27) corresponding to the power of the optical signal (23) using the gain control signal (26).

An optical communication device and related method are provided for reducing power variations among wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) signals. The device includes a dynamic gain equalizer (DGE) coupled to an optical communication path carrying WDM optical signals. The DGE is controlled in response to signals generated by an optical channel monitor (OCM). The OCM monitors signals coming into the DGE and monitors the signals leaving the DGE to thus monitor the WDM spectrum for optical signal power variations and adjust the DGE to reduce the signal power variations.

The present invention discloses an optical power equilibrium method and apparatus. The method includes: configuring a liquid crystal on silicon LCOS as a blazed grating pattern whose phase periodically changes, where each period includes three grating segments, a pixel quantity in each period does not change, and a second grating segment is located between a first grating segment and a third grating segment; monitoring power of wavelength signals in a WDM signal, where the WDM signal includes a first wavelength signal; and reducing a phase modulation depth and a pixel quantity of the second grating segment in each period at a first location if power of the first wavelength signal is greater than preset target power, so that the power of the first wavelength signal is the same as the target power, where the first location is a location at which the first wavelength signal is incident to the LCOS.

In an optical transceiver, an optical transmitter coupled to a reconfigurable optical channel-add apparatus has first and second add paths, an add micro-ring resonator, and first and second optical attenuators, reconfigurable to selectively block an optical channel from an optical transmitter in one of the first and second add paths. The add micro-ring resonator is reconfigurable selectively to add an optical channel from the first add path to an optical waveguide to travel towards the first add-drop port or to add an optical channel from the second add path to the optical waveguide to travel towards the second add-drop port. An optical receiver is coupled to a reconfigurable optical channel-drop apparatus having a drop micro-ring resonator, and first and second drop paths. The drop micro-ring resonator is reconfigurable selectively to drop an optical channel travelling from the first add-drop port from the optical waveguide to the first drop path or to drop an optical channel travelling from the second add-drop port from the optical waveguide to the second drop path.

Systems and methods for estimating a transmit symbol sequence implemented in a coherent receiver include receiving a nominally error-free information bit sequence subsequent to Forward Error Correction (FEC) decoding; determining a nominally error-free estimate of the transmitted bit sequence based on the nominally error-free information bit sequence; and determining a nominally error-free estimate of the transmit symbol sequence by mapping the transmit bit sequence to transmit symbols. The system and methods can further include comparing a transmit optical field based on the transmit symbols to a received optical field for one or more measurements.

A node (10) includes multiplexing unit (11) that multiplexes a plurality of subcarrier signals for performing optical wavelength multiplexing communication into a wavelength group signal; output unit (12) that outputs the multiplexed wavelength group signal to an optical transmission line; pre-multiplexing level correction unit (13) that corrects a level deviation between the subcarrier signals before the multiplexing based on an optical level of the wavelength group signal in the output unit (12); and post-multiplexing level correction unit (14) that corrects a level deviation of the wavelength group signal after the multiplexing including the corrected subcarrier signals based on the optical level of the wavelength group signal in the output unit (12).

A processor of an apparatus is configured to apply one or more control algorithms using estimated data to adjust the one or more control parameters of a section of an optical fiber network. The estimated data are derived from measurements of optical signals in the section and from knowledge of the section. The estimated data is a function of optical nonlinearity and of amplified spontaneous emission.

Consistent with the present disclosure, a photonic integrated circuit (PIC) is provided that has 2 N channels (N being an integer). The PIC is optically coupled to N optical fibers, such that each of N polarization multiplexed optical signals are transmitted over a respective one of the N optical fibers. In another example, each of the N optical fibers supply a respective one of N polarization multiplexed optical signals to the PIC for coherent detection and processing. A multiplexer and demultiplexer may be omitted from the PIC, such that the optical signals are not combined on the PIC. As a result, the transmitted and received optical signals incur less loss and amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise. In addition, optical taps may be more readily employed on the PIC to measure outputs of the lasers, such as widely tunable lasers (WTLs), without crossing waveguides.