Patent Document ID: 7551347
Application ID: 11979370
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. An optical amplification characteristics simulation apparatus for supplying a pumping light to an amplification medium doped with rare-earth ions of an optical amplifier, and for simulating optical amplification characteristics of said amplification medium which amplifies a signal light input thereto due to a stimulated emission phenomenon of the pumped rare-earth ions to output the amplified signal light, comprising: an input section that receives information relating to the signal light input to said amplification medium; a storage section that stores therein information relating to at least characteristics of said amplification medium; a computation section that uses the input information of said input section and the stored information of said storage section, to calculate gain wavelength characteristics, inclusive of a gain fluctuation portion due to a gain spectral hole burning phenomenon, of said amplification medium in accordance with a previously set calculating formula, and obtains the power of the signal light output from said amplification medium based on said calculated gain wavelength characteristics, to thereby simulate the optical amplification characteristics of said amplification medium; and an output section that outputs the simulation result in said computation section, wherein said calculating formula used in said computation section has a parameter corresponding to the gain fluctuation portion due to the gain spectral hole burning phenomenon, and said parameter is defined with a function obtained by modeling a physical phenomenon in which a population inversion rate is reduced due to the gain spectral hole burning phenomenon, based on that, in an energy level structure of said amplification medium having Stark levels which are split into J+½ or 2J+1 relative to the total quantum numbers J due to Coulomb interactions, the spin-orbit interaction and the Stark effect, electron occupation numbers of each Stark level on the end level side are increased.