A Long-Span Repeater for Regional

Submarine Systems
Equipment & Component Technologies

Patrice Le Roux, Mélanie Jaouen and Ghislaine Vareille

Submerged Equipment Development - Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks

Baltimore - May 16th, 2007

Outline

1. Introduction

2. Choice of the dual-stage EDFA topology

3. Dual-stage amplifier-pair design

4. Repeater optical performances

5. Summary - Conclusion

2 | A Long-Span Repeater for Regional Submarine Systems | Moy 2007 All Rights Reserved © Alcatel-Lucent 2007
Outline

1. Introduction

2. Choice of the dual-stage EDFA topology

3. Dual-stage amplifier-pair design

4. Repeater optical performances

5. Summary - Conclusion

3 | A Long-Span Repeater for Regional Submarine Systems | Moy 2007 All Rights Reserved © Alcatel-Lucent 2007
Introduction

ƒ Increase of span reach allows to reduce the cost of submarine

telecommunication cable systems,

ƒ New long-span submarine repeaters enabling repeater spacing in the range 100-
150 km is presented. Example of applications :
Regional cable systems (main application) :

Land Land

Long-span Repeater spacing:

repeaters 100 km to 150 km

Branches of long-haul or ultra long-haul cable systems :

Branching Units
Land

Land Long-span repeaters

Island

4 | A Long-Span Repeater for Regional Submarine Systems | Moy 2007 All Rights Reserved © Alcatel-Lucent 2007
Introduction
Which technology for long-span repeaters ?

Various amplification methods investigated (lab demonstrations) :

Distributed Raman amplification / Raman-assisted Erbium-Doped Fibre Amplifier (EDFA):

+ Low Noise Figure ≡ OSNR improvement compared to EDFAs

– Low pump efficiency. Large pump power consumption required

⇒ high line current requirement (impact the cable cost and/or PFE),

– System performances may suffer from pump power & wavelength unstabilities
and significant impact of cable repair all along the system lifetime.

Erbium-Doped Fibre Amplifier:

+ High pump efficiency,

+ Robust and reliable technology for use on submarine cable systems,

ƒ BUT, long-span repeater (≡ “high-gain” > 20 dB) implies the use of dual-stage
EDFA to achieve stable line amplification.

5 | A Long-Span Repeater for Regional Submarine Systems | Moy 2007 All Rights Reserved © Alcatel-Lucent 2007
Outline

1. Introduction

2. Choice of the dual-stage EDFA topology

3. Dual-stage amplifier-pair design

4. Repeater optical performances

5. Summary - Conclusion

6 | A Long-Span Repeater for Regional Submarine Systems | Moy 2007 All Rights Reserved © Alcatel-Lucent 2007
Submarine Long-Span Repeater Topology
Design Requirements

Submarine repeater key drivers:

ƒ Reliability :
Must be qualified for use on undersea operation over a lifetime of twenty-five years.
ƒ Robustness :
The design shall take into account a wide range of operational conditions that the
repeater could experience :
– The systems shall remain operational in the event of a repeater input level
drop reaching 10 dB below its nominal input level,
– Shall not be altered in case of any faulty conditions (cable break / cable loop
incident).

7 | A Long-Span Repeater for Regional Submarine Systems | Moy 2007 All Rights Reserved © Alcatel-Lucent 2007
 Submarine Long-Span Repeater Topology
Single-stage Erbium-Doped Fibre Amplifier Operational Limitation

ƒ Output spectrum oscillations phenomenon

Example of lasing effect observed on a 22 dB gain single-stage EDFA when input light
level is dropped by 16 dB (≡ 38 dB operating gain),
⇒ strong transient amplification unstability that may damage the amplifier !

10 10

Relative Output Power (dB)

Oscillations in the peak gain region
Relative Output Power (dB)

0 5

-10 0

-20 -5

-30 -10

-40 -15
-50 -20
1525 1535 1545 1555 1565 1528 1529 1530 1531 1532 1533
Wavelength (nm) Wavelength (nm)

Single-stage EDFA topology well suited for long-haul cable systems

– Repeater gain lower than 20 dB (repeater spacing shorter than 100-km)
Double-stage EDFA topology required for long-span repeater (gain higher than 20 dB)
–Allows to distribute the internal gain between both amplification stages

8 | A Long-Span Repeater for Regional Submarine Systems | Moy 2007 All Rights Reserved © Alcatel-Lucent 2007
Outline

1. Introduction

2. Choice of the dual-stage EDFA topology

3. Dual-stage amplifier-pair design

4. Repeater optical performances

5. Summary - Conclusion

9 | A Long-Span Repeater for Regional Submarine Systems | Moy 2007 All Rights Reserved © Alcatel-Lucent 2007
 Submarine Long-Span Repeater
Double-Stage Erbium-Doped Fibre Amplifier-pair Description

Amplifier Input Amplifier Output

Direction A Direction A
1st-stage 2nd-stage Gain Flattening
EDF EDF Filter
Tap Tap Pump Pump Pump Tap
Isolator Isolator Isolator
Coupler Coupler MUX MUX MUX Coupler

Output A Monitor
Input A Monitor PIN Diode
PIN Diode

980nm Pump 1
50/50
Coupler
980nm Pump 2
Optical Optical
Attenuator attenuator

Input B Monitor
Output B Monitor
PIN Diode
PIN Diode

2nd-stage 1st-stage
EDF EDF

Isolator Isolator Isolator

Tap Pump Tap Tap

Coupler MUX Coupler Coupler
Gain Flattening Pump Pump
Amplifier Output Filter MUX MUX
Direction B Amplifier Input
Direction B

10 | A Long-Span Repeater for Regional Submarine Systems | Moy 2007 All Rights Reserved © Alcatel-Lucent 2007
Outline

1. Introduction

2. Choice of the dual-stage EDFA topology

3. Dual-stage amplifier-pair design

4. Repeater optical performances

5. Summary - Conclusion

11 | A Long-Span Repeater for Regional Submarine Systems | Moy 2007 All Rights Reserved © Alcatel-Lucent 2007
 Submarine Long-Span Repeater
Optical Performances

ƒ Repeater optical performances (gain, output power, …) are optimized to match specific
requirements of each cable system.

ƒ Generic design of the first amplification stage successfully achieved :

1st amplifier provides about 20 dB gain whatever the total repeater gain is.
Allows to ease the manufacturing process. Only the 2nd amplification stage is finely adjusted during
manufacturing.

250 1st amplifier stage (fixed EDF length) 30

2nd amplifier stage 1st amplifier stage (fixed EDF length)
Total 2nd amplifier stage

Amplification Stages
200 25
Pump Power (mW)

20

Gain (dB)
150
15
100
10
50
5

0 0
22 24 26 28 30 32 22 24 26 28 30 32
Repeater Gain (dB) Repeater Gain (dB)

13 nm bandwidth repeater / 15 dBm output power (2 x 200 mW 980nm pumps topology)

12 | A Long-Span Repeater for Regional Submarine Systems | Moy 2007 All Rights Reserved © Alcatel-Lucent 2007
 Submarine Long-Span Repeater
Optical Performances

ƒ Amplifier parameters :
15 10
Transmission BW: 1544.92–1557.36nm
5 9
Output power : 15 dBm

Noise Figure (dB)

Amplifier Output
-5 8

Spectrum (dB)
Repeater gain : 25 dB
-15 7
-25 6
-35 5
-45 OSA Resolution 0.2 nm 4
-55 3
1530 1535 1540 1545 1550 1555 1560 1565
Wavelength (nm)

ƒ Noise Figure : ƒ Gain flatness :

Noise figure lower than 5 dB are achieved Typical gain unflatness lower than 0.15 dB
NF similar to those of single-stage EDFAs Efficient noise rejection (1532nm ASE peak)
thanks to the gain flattening filter design
– “High-gain” adjustment of the 1st stage ensures
good NF performances and masks significantly
inter-stage losses.

13 | A Long-Span Repeater for Regional Submarine Systems | Moy 2007 All Rights Reserved © Alcatel-Lucent 2007
 Double-Stage Erbium-Doped Fibre Amplifier
Optical Performances vs Input Level
15

Amplifier Output Spectrum

OSA Resolution 0.2 nm

ƒ Robust dual-stage EDFA design : 5

-5
No oscillation on the output spectrum when
input light level is switched off. -15

(dB)
-25
-35
Nominal input level
-45 Pin_nom-10 dB
no input
-55
1530 1535 1540 1545 1550 1555 1560 1565
Wavelength (nm)

Output Power Variation (dB)

ƒ Repeater output power tolerant to input 1
light level drop : 0

Amplifier saturation regime, -1

Pump control ⇒ automatic output level control -2
Less than 0.6 dB output power drop when the -3
input light level is reduced by 5 dB.
-4
-10 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2
Input Power Variation (dB)
14 | A Long-Span Repeater for Regional Submarine Systems | Moy 2007 All Rights Reserved © Alcatel-Lucent 2007
Outline

1. Introduction

2. Choice of the dual-stage EDFA topology

3. Dual-stage amplifier-pair design

4. Repeater optical performances

5. Summary - Conclusion

15 | A Long-Span Repeater for Regional Submarine Systems | Moy 2007 All Rights Reserved © Alcatel-Lucent 2007
 Summary - Conclusion

New long-span repeater dedicated to regional systems :

ƒ Design based on dual-stage erbium-doped fibre amplification,

ƒ Robust and reliable operation are achieved for gain ranging from 20 dB to 30 dB
(100-150 km repeater spacing),

ƒ Repeater output power of 17 dBm can be achieved using high power submarine
pumps delivering more than 300mW,

ƒ Repeater fully compliant with standard requirements of submarine repeaters,

Line fault localization by means of COTDR test equipment and repeater supervision via
the system management facility.

ƒ New repeater qualified for undersea operation over a lifetime of 25 years.

Already deployed on several regional telecommunication cable systems.

16 | A Long-Span Repeater for Regional Submarine Systems | Moy 2007 All Rights Reserved © Alcatel-Lucent 2007
 www.alcatel-lucent.com

17 | A Long-Span Repeater for Regional Submarine Systems | Moy 2007 All Rights Reserved © Alcatel-Lucent 2007