Customer Success: Noisecom NC1000 Amplified Noise Modules

Customer Success Story:

Customer is a manufacturer of high powered specialty fiber optic lasers and optical amplifiers for applications such as laser cutting, welding, and defense technology, industrial, medical and aerospace industries. They are using Noisecom NC1000 amplified noise module to allow an increase of optical power and minimize Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) effect in a fiber laser system. This helped them to improve the power transfer into the fiber by allowing them to control the spreading of the wavelength of the laser. Using noise power simplifies the control process and reduces the cost of the system.

Previous Situation:

This customer was using a digital BERT test set with external attenuators to spread the wavelength and the coherence of a laser to reduce SBS. They were using bandwidth phase modulation techniques for Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) suppression in their fiber optic system. Since they were using a  BERT tester and accessories, this added steps made their overall test procedure very complicated and expensive.

Problem or Challenge and its Impact:

The size, control, complexity and cost of the BERT system is a  big concern for them. They also had to follow many additional steps to spread the wavelength and minimize the SBS effect into their fiber optic system. Due to the size issue and dependencies on other equipment it was not convenient for them to use a complex system to control the optical power. The overall test methodology was very complex and expensive due to these additional steps and the potential for reliability of the system was an additional issue.

Solution Implemented/Action Taken:

Using the Noisecom NC1000 and an optical phase modulator helped them to reduce SBS and spread the optical wavelength. The customer requested Noisecom to provide them a custom package consisting of a noise module, step attenuation and amplification to inject noise into the phase modulator. Noisecom provided a solution by incorporating both 1 and 0.1 dB step attenuation in an amplified noise source NC1000 series custom model. The attenuators allow for precise control of the noise for more accurate wavelength spreading. This helped them to increase the optical power into the fiber and increase performance by controlling noise output power and eventually allowing them to control the wavelength spreading in the fiber optic system.

Results/Impact:

Customer was able to improve the performance of the fiber optic system by using Noisecom’s custom built NC1000 series amplified noise module with incorporated attenuators to provide an efficient cost effective and simplified solution with higher reliability. The noise modules are also more robust and require less maintenance than the complex fragile digital solution.