Performance comparison of pre-, boost-, and inline-multimode erbium-doped fiber amplifier configurations to boost mode-division multiplexed multimode fiber link

The performance of 3×3, 4×4, 5×5, and 6×6 optical multi-input multioutput (MIMO) mode-division multiplexed multimode fiber (MMF) systems has been investigated using pre-, boost-, and inline-multimode erbium-doped fiber amplifier configuration methods with LP_lm (linearly polarized) modes. The outcome of these configurations has been compared in terms of quality factor (Q-factor) and bit error rate (BER). It is reported that inline-configuration provides best results for all MIMO mode-division multiplexing (MDM) systems covering transmission distance of 100 km with acceptable BER (<10^-9) and Q-factor (>10 dB) over MMF link to boost performance of MDM system.