optical amplifier

optical amplifier definition - computer

A device that boosts light signals in an optical fiber network. Unlike regenerators, which have to convert light to electricity in order to amplify it and then convert it back again to light, the optical amplifier amplifies the light signal itself. Developed in the late 1980s, the erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) was the first successful optical amplifier. See EDFA.



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