A new polarisation insensitive configuration of a semiconductor laser amplifier is presented. This configuration achieves polarisation insensitive gain by a bi-directional pass of the split polarised light waves through a laser amplifier. The experiments demonstrate a reduction of the gain difference from 5 dB to 0-1 dB while attaining a high fibre-to-fibre gain of 12 dB and a high saturation fibre output power of + 6dBm. © 1990, The Institution of Electrical Engineers. All rights reserved.