IEC TR 61292-4:2004

Optical amplifiers - Part 4: Maximum permissible optical power for the damage-free and safe use of optical amplifiers, including Raman amplifiers

Applies to all commercially available optical amplifiers (OAs), including optical fibre amplifiers (OFAs) using active fibres, as well as Raman amplifiers. Semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) using semiconductor gain media are also included. Also provides a simple informative guideline on the threshold of high optical power that causes high-temperature damage of fibre. Optical safety for manufactures and users of optical amplifiers by reiterating substantial parts of existing standards and agreements on eye and skin safety are also discussed.

General Information

• Status: Published
• Publication Date: 23-Aug-2004
• ICS: 33.160.10 - Amplifiers
• ICS: 33.180.30 - Optic amplifiers
• Technical Committee: SC 86C - Fibre optic systems and active devices
• Current Stage: DELPUB - Deleted Publication
• Completion Date: 10-Mar-2010

Relations

• Revised: IEC TR 61292-4:2010 - Optical amplifiers - Part 4: Maximum permissible optical power for the damage-free and safe use of optical amplifiers, including Raman amplifiers
• Effective Date: 05-Sep-2023

Standards Content (Sample)

TECHNICAL IEC
REPORT TR 61292-4
First edition
2004-08
Optical amplifiers –
Part 4:
Maximum permissible optical power
for the damage-free and safe use
of optical amplifiers, including
Raman amplifiers
Reference number
IEC/TR 61292-4:2004(E)
Publication numbering
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60000 series. For example, IEC 34-1 is now referred to as IEC 60034-1.

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base publication incorporating amendment 1 and the base publication incorporating

amendments 1 and 2.
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TECHNICAL IEC
REPORT TR 61292-4
First edition
2004-08
Optical amplifiers –
Part 4:
Maximum permissible optical power
for the damage-free and safe use
of optical amplifiers, including
Raman amplifiers
” IEC 2004  Copyright - all rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying and microfilm, without permission in writing from the publisher.
International Electrotechnical Commission, 3, rue de Varembé, PO Box 131, CH-1211 Geneva 20, Switzerland
Telephone: [phone] Telefax: [phone] E-mail: [e-mail] Web: www.iec.ch
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International Electrotechnical Commission
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For price, see current catalogue

– 2 – TR 61292-4 ” IEC:2004(E)

CONTENTS
FOREWORD.3

INTRODUCTION.5

1 Scope and object.6

2 Maximum transmissible optical power to keep fibres damage-free .6

2.1 Fibre fuse and its propagation.7

2.2 Loss-induced heating at connectors or splices.8

2.3 Connector end-face damage induced by dust/contamination .10
2.4 Fibre-coat burn/melt induced by tight fibre bending.13
2.5 Summary of the fibre-damage experiments.14
3 Maximum transmissible optical power to keep eyes and skin safe.14
3.1 Maximum permissible exposure (MPE) on the surface of eye and skin .14
3.2 Maximum permissible optical power in the fibre for the safety of eye and skin .15
4 Maximum optical power permissible for optical amplifiers from the viewpoints of
fibre damage as well as eye and skin safety.18
5 Conclusion.18
Bibliography .19
Figure 1 – Experimental setup for fibre fuse propagation .7
Figure 2 – Connection loss versus temperature increase .9
Figure 3 – Test setup.10
Figure 4 – Surface condition contaminated with metal filings, before the test.11
Figure 5 – Variation of the power attenuation during the test at several power input
values for plugs contaminated with metal filings .12
Figure 6 – Polishing surface condition contaminated with metal filing, after the test.12
Figure 7 – Thermo-viewer image of tightly-bent SMF with optical power of 3 W at 1 480 nm .13
Figure 8 – Temperature of the coating surface of SMFs against bending with optical
power of 3 W at 1 480 nm .14
Figure 9 – Maximum permissible power in the fibre against APR power reduction time .17
Table 1 – Experimental results of the threshold power of fibre fuse propagation .7
Table 2 – Measurement conditions .9
Table 3 – Examples of the maximum permissible optical power in the fibre for OAs
determined by the MPE limit for the eyes and skin.16

TR 61292-4 ” IEC:2004(E) – 3 –

INTERNATIONAL ELECTROTECHNICAL COMMISSION

____________
OPTICAL AMPLIFIERS –
Part 4: Maximum permissible optical power

for the damage-free and safe use of optical amplifiers,

including Raman amplifiers
FOREWORD
1) The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is a worldwide organization for standardization comprising
all national electrotechnical committees (IEC National Committees). The object of IEC is to promote
international co-operation on all questions concerning standardization in the electrical and electronic fields. To
this end and in addition to other activities, IEC publishes International Standards, Technical Specifications,
Technical Reports, Publicly Available Specifications (PAS) and Guides (hereafter referred to as “IEC
Publication(s)”). Their preparation is entrusted to technical committees; any IEC National Committee interested
in the subject dealt with may participate in this preparatory work. International, governmental and non-
governmental organizations liaising with the IEC also participate in this preparation. IEC collaborates closely
with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in accordance with conditions determined by
agreement between the two organizations.
2) The formal decisions or agreements of IEC on technical matters express, as nearly as possible, an international
consensus of opinion on the relevant subjects since each technical committee has representation from all
interested IEC National Committees.
3) IEC Publications have the form of recommendations for international use and are accepted by IEC National
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Publications is accurate, IEC cannot be held responsible for the way in which they are used or for any
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between any IEC Publication and the corresponding national or regional publication shall be clearly indicated in
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5) IEC provides no marking procedure to indicate its approval and cannot be rendered responsible for any
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8) Attention is drawn to the Normative references cited in this publication. Use of the referenced publications is
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9) Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this IEC Publication may be the subject of
patent rights. IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

The main task of IEC technical committees is to prepare International Standards. However, a
technical committee may propose the publication of a technical report when it has collected
data of a different kind from that which is normally published as an International Standard, for
example "state of the art".
IEC 61292-4, which is a technical report, has been prepared by subcommittee 86C: Fibre
optic systems and active devices, of IEC technical committee 86: Fibre optics.
The text of this technical report is based on the following documents:
Enquiry draft Report on voting
86C/593/DTR 86C/629/RVC
Full information on the voting for the approval of this technical report can be found in the
report on voting indicated in the above table.

– 4 – TR 61292-4 ” IEC:2004(E)

This publication has been drafted in accordance with the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2.

IEC 61292 consists of the following parts, under the new general title Optical amplifiers:

Part 1: Parameters of amplifier components

Part 2: Theoretical background for noise figure evaluation using the electrical spectrum

analyzer
Part 3: Classification, characteristics and applications

Part 4: Maximum permissible optical power for the damage-free and safe use of optical

amplifiers, including Raman amplifiers

Part 5: Polarization mode dispersion parameter – General parameter
Future standards in this series will carry the new general title as cited above. Titles of existing
standards in this series will be updated at the time of the next edition.
The committee has decided that the contents of this publication will remain unchanged until
the maintenance result date indicated on the IEC web site under "http://webstore.iec.ch" in
the data related to the specific publication. At this date, the publication will be
 reconfirmed;
 withdrawn;
 replaced by a revised edition, or
 amended.
A bilingual version of this publication may be issued at a later date.
㩷
TR 61292-4 ” IEC:2004(E) – 5 –

INTRODUCTION
This technical report is dedicated to the subject of maximum permissible optical power for

damage-free and safe use of optical amplifiers, including Raman amplifiers. Since the

technology is quite new and still evolving, amendments and new editions to this document can

be expected.
Many new types of optical amplifiers are entering the marketplace and research on this

subject is also stimulating many new types of fibre and non-fibre based optical amplifier

research. With the introduction of such technologies as long-haul, 40Gb/s, WDM transmission

and Raman amplification, some optical amplifiers may involve optical pump sources with

extremely high optical power – up to, possibly, several watts.
Excessively high optical power may cause physical damage to the fibres/optical
components/equipment as well as present medical danger to the human eye and skin.
The possibility of fibre damage caused by high optical intensity has recently been discussed
at some technical conferences. IEC Technical Committee 31 (Electrical apparatus for
explosive atmospheres) is also discussing the risk of ignition of hazardous environments by
radiation from optical equipment.
The medical aspects have long been discussed at standards groups. IEC Technical
Committee 76 (Optical radiation safety and laser equipment) precisely describes in
IEC 60825-2 the concept of hazard level and labelling and addresses the safety aspects of
lasers specifically in relation to tissue damage.
ITU-T Study Group 15 (Optical and other transport networks) has published Recommendation
G.664, which primarily discusses the automatic laser power reduction functionality for safety.
With the recent growth of interest in fibre Raman amplifiers, however, some difficulties have
been identified among optical amplifier users and manufacturers in fully understanding the
technical details and requirements across all such standards and agreements.
This technical report, therefore, provides a simple informative guideline on the maximum
optical power permissible for optical amplifiers. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first
international guideline on the maximum optical power permissible in optical fibre devices that
takes both physical and medical viewpoints into consideration.

– 6 – TR 61292-4 ” IEC:2004(E)

OPTICAL AMPLIFIERS –
Part 4: Maximum permissible optical power

for the damage-free and safe use of optical amplifiers,

including Raman amplifiers
1 Scope and object
This technical report applies to all commercially available optical amplifiers (OAs), including
optical fibre amplifiers (OFAs) using active fibres, as well as Raman amplifiers.
Semiconduc
...