Patent ID: 7236700

Claim:
An optical system, comprising: an optical multiplexer having at least four stages of star coupler having a cumulative insertion loss of at least 12 dB to combine a plurality of wavelength channels; a power amplifier having an erbium doped fiber with a fixed length, the power amplifier being coupled to an output of the optical multiplexer for compensating for at least part of an optical loss associated with the at least four stages of star coupler, wherein the power amplifier has a gain of at least 15 dB; and a high gain amplifier having an erbium doped fiber with a fixed length, the high gain amplifier receiving multiplexed wavelength channels via an optical fiber, the gain selected to compensate for at least part of an optical loss associated with the optical fiber, wherein the erbium doped fiber of the power amplifier has substantially the same fixed length as the erbium doped fiber of the high gain amplifier; the power amplifier and the high gain amplifier each having a substantially flat gain spectrum over the plurality of wavelength channels in the C-band.