High-resolution and stable optical power measurement using a temperature controlled amplified-spontaneous-emission feedback circuit

Abstract

We propose a high-resolution and stable optical power measurement technique employing a temperature controlled amplified-spontaneous-emission feedback circuit (ASEFC). We evaluate the optical power resolution (OPR) and repeatability characteristics of the temperature controlled ASEFC. The results show that small time variations in the optical power of the lights emitted from two types of light sources used in the technique are accurately measured for one hour with improvement factors larger than 97 and OPRs better than 0.10 mdB when we assume a temporal power fluctuation uncertainty of an optical power meter set after the temperature controlled ASEFC equal to 10 mdB.