Optical amplifier "erbium-doped waveguide amplifier" ("EDWA") is an optical amplifier that uses a waveguide to boost an optical signal. Amplification is achieved by stimulated emission of photons from dopant ions in the doped fiber. The pump laser excites ions into a higher energy from where they can decay via stimulated emission of a photon at the signal wavelength back to a lower energy level. The excited ions can also decay spontaneously (spontaneous emission) or even through nonradiative processes involving interactions with phonons of the glass matrix. These last two decay mechanisms compete with stimulated emission reducing the efficiency of light amplification. The
Sound amplification by stimulated emission of radiation Therefore, amplification and cooling occur around a tunable line center, in contrast with some cavity optomechanical phenomena. The creation of these finely spaced levels does not require increasing the optical microcavity dimensions. Hence, these finely spaced levels do not affect the optomechanical interaction strength in a significant degree. The approach uses intermodal coupling, induced by radiation pressure and can also provide a spectrally selective mean to detect phonons. Moreover, some evidences of intermodal cooling are observed in this kind of experiments and thus, there is an interest in optomechanical cooling. Overall, an extension to multilevel systems using multiple coupled resonators