Gain-clamped thulium-doped fibre amplifier with single pump at 1050 nm

The large homogeneous bandwidth of a thulium-doped fibre amplifier makes it suitable for optical gain clamping. This has been demonstrated experimentally. Gain variation of 1.2 dB for 15 dB input dynamic range has been achieved, with less than 1 dB gain ripple over 20 nm, and no noise figure degradation, while pumped at 1050 nm.