An apparatus and method are described for combining optical amplification and
dispersion compensation in a Raman
amplifier. A Dispersion-Managing Raman
Amplifier (DMRA) combines
Raman amplification with
dispersion compensation by selecting the length and dispersion of the
gain fiber to balance the dispersion of the link. This
gain fiber is also single-mode at the
signal and pump wavelengths. The pumping level is adjusted to balance the losses from the
gain fiber and transmission link, while the pumping configuration is selected to remain within the 3 dB loss length for the pumping light. When the
amplifier is split into two segments, the two segments may be joined by an
isolator, a gain
equalization element, and / or an optical add / drop
multiplexer. For
WDM transmission systems based on dispersion-shifted fiber (DSF), operation in the “violet band” between 1430–1530 nm is based on
Raman amplification. By using a DMRA, a dispersion and nonlinearity managed
system can be implemented. In particular, 4WM does not phase match in such a
system, and modulation
instability is absent in the transmission link. Furthermore, gain
equalization can be added to the DMRA by cascading one or two Mach-Zehnder frequency filters. The invention also includes a method for symmetrically adding channels below and above the C-band, the gain tilt within the C-band can be minimized. Therefore, a roughly equal number of channels should be placed in the short-
wavelength S-band and the long-
wavelength L-band to minimize the Raman
energy exchange in the C-band. Also, whereas C- and L-bands can be amplified using
erbium-doped fiber amplifiers, the S-band can use either discrete or distributed
Raman amplifiers. To minimize the interaction between pumps for different bands, alternate band pumps can be spatially dispersed and / or cross-polarized. The distributed
Raman amplification can be achieved by pumping the
transmission line with discrete
laser diodes or by a Raman oscillator.