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Abstract

A fiber amplifier is configured such that its spontaneous emissions are filtered out at the instant of creation. The fiber optic amplifier combines the gain medium of the fiber optical amplifier with a continuous filter to filter out the spontaneous emissions to prevent spontaneously emitted photons from stealing gain from signal photons. The photonic crystal fiber has a central core doped with a gain medium such as erbium, ytterbium or thulium ions. The central core of the photonic crystal fiber is surrounded by a cladding region having an array of holes or air voids that may be filled with materials with refractive index different from that of the central core. The array of holes are configured to restrict the wavelength range within which light can propagate inside the central core thereby providing continuous filtering functionality. The fiber amplifier has a pump operative to generate pump energy that is coupled to the photonic crystal fiber simultaneously with the signal. The wavelength of the pump energy is within the absorption band of the gain medium to facilitate amplification of the signal.

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First Claim