Method and apparatus for suppressing optical beat interference noise in raman amplifiers

1. A method for suppressing optical beat interference noise in a fiber link of an optical network, comprising:

detuning a wavelength of a laser beam generated by a first pump laser and a wavelength of a laser beam generated by a second pump laser of a pair of polarization multiplexed pump lasers with respect to each other to by a tuning circuit, to suppress the optical beat interference (OBI) noise in the fiber link of the optical network

wherein the tuning circuit is configured to detune wavelengths of the laser beams generated by each of the pair of polarization multiplexed pump lasers with respect to each other by detuning temperatures of the respective first and second pump lasers of the pair of polarization multiplexed pump lasers.

2. A pump signal generation apparatus adapted to generate a pump signal with suppressed optical beat interference (OBI) noise in a fiber link of an optical network, comprising:

at least one pair of polarization multiplexed pump lasers comprising a first pump laser and a second pump laser; and

a tuning circuit connected to each of the at least one pair of polarization multiplexed pump lasers;

wherein the tuning circuit is configured to detune wavelengths of the laser beams generated by each of the at least one pair of polarization multiplexed pump lasers with respect to each other, thereby suppressing the OBI noise in the fiber link of the optical network; and

wherein the tuning circuit is configured to detune temperatures of the respective first and second pump lasers of the pair of polarization multiplexed pump lasers.

3. The apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein each pair of polarization multiplexed pump lasers is connected to a corresponding polarization beam combiner (PBC) adapted to combine the orthogonal polarized laser beams generated by the first and second pump laser.

4. The apparatus according to claim 3 , wherein a wavelength difference between a first center wavelength of the first pump laser and a second center wavelength of the second pump laser is set such that it exceeds a predetermined minimum wavelength difference.

5. The apparatus according to claim 4 , wherein the minimum wavelength difference is set to be in a range between 0.25 nm and 0.3 nm, in particular 0.28 nm.

6. The apparatus according to claim 3 , wherein a wavelength difference between a first center wavelength of the first pump laser and a second center wavelength of the second pump laser is set such that it does not exceed a predetermined maximum wavelength difference to minimize a polarization dependent gain.

7. The apparatus according to claim 6 , wherein the maximum wavelength difference is set to be in a range between 10 nm and 15 nm, in particular 11.3 nm.

8. The apparatus according to claim 3 , wherein said polarization beam combiners of different pairs of polarization multiplexed pump lasers are connected to a WDM multiplexer.

9. The apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein said polarization multiplexed pump lasers are Fabry-Perot lasers each having a center wavelength stabilized by an external fiber Bragg grating or multilongitudinal mode DFB lasers.

10. A Raman amplifier comprising at least one pump signal generation apparatus according to claim 2 and a WDM multiplexer adapted to multiplex an optical pump signal generated by said pump signal generation apparatus with optical data signals to generate an optical transmission signal supplied to a transmission line fiber of said fiber link.

11. The Raman amplifier according to claim 10 , wherein said Raman amplifier is a co-pumped Raman amplifier.

12. The Raman amplifier according to claim 1 , wherein said Raman amplifier is a distributed Raman amplifier or a lumped Raman amplifier.

13. A wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) system comprising at least one Raman amplifier according to claim 10 .