Wideband Optical Amplifiers for Datacenters, Hyperscale Networks and Telecom Networks

Monday, 25 March, 16:30 – 18:30

Room 7

This panel will address the maturity of the amplifier technologies beyond C- and L-bands, as well as their suitability for hyperscale datacenters and telecom networks of the near future. For the last three decades EDFA has been a key enabler of long-haul communications. As the bandwidth demand keeps growing, opening spectral regions beyond the traditional telecom bands of EDFA becomes important. The importance of amplifier technologies for these regions is further emphasized by the recent advances in hollow core fibers that have low-loss windows much wider than C- and L-bands. In parallel to the telecom market, the hyperscale datacenter campuses are undergoing a rapid expansion in size and capacity, with ever-increasing intra-datacenter distances and modulation formats complexity. As a result, huge efforts are underway to develop novel optical fiber-based and on-chip amplifiers suitable for such datacenter networks.

Several solutions for amplification outside of the C- and L- bands have been discussed, e.g., SOAs, Bi-, Tm-, and Pr- doped fiber amplifiers, Raman amplifiers, etc. This panel brings together experts from industry and academia to discuss the advantages and challenges that these solutions face, as well as explore their readiness for the network applications.

Organizers

Speakers