A novel twin-core photonic crystal fiber was proposed to reduce the complexity and cost of fiber Raman amplifiers.By means of a proper design,this fiber could acquire a higher and flatter Raman gain efficiency coefficient curve rR=gR/Aeff over a specified band of wavelength than a conventional fiber.A Raman amplifier was designed with this novel twin-core photonic crystal fiber to operate in C band from 1530 nm to 1565 nm.A remarkable improvement over a conventional fiber Raman amplifier was obtained.It was numerically demonstrated that when pumped with a single source,an average gain of 8.7 dB with a fluctuation of less than 0.9 dB is achievable.
