Noise Characterization of Brillouin Amplified Narrowband Carriers for Coherent Communications

Brillouin amplifier noise is evaluated using coherent detection and QPSK analysis via digital-signal processing. For amplification in 4.46km single-mode fiber, noise is shown to be negligible for input powers ≥ ≈ −11dBm and gain ≈<30dB, and dominated by amplitude rather than phase-noise.