Praseodymium doped fibre amplifiers (PDFAs) pumped by monolithic master oscillator power amplifier (M-MOPA) laser diodes

Praseodymium-doped ZBLAN fibre amplifiers pumped by high power M-MOPA laser diodes demonstrate output powers up to l7.1 dBm and small signal gain levels up to 26 dB at 1.31 /spl mu/m wavelength. Optical receiver preamplification using an M-MOPA pumped PDFA results in a 4 dB sensitivity improvement for a 2.5 Gbit/s transmission experiment.