Possibility of plastic optical fiber amplifier by CW-side excitation

We propose a novel structure of a rare-earth chelate-doped plastic optical fiber amplifier (POFA) which is pumped by CW-side excitation. From the calculation for a Nd-chelate doped POFA, the maximum signal gain of 21 dB is achieved by only 20 W pumping power and a POFA length of 20 cm. Moreover, there is obviously an optimal radius of dope area which is about half of the core radius even though the energy system of Nd-chelate is four-level in nature. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.