The invention provides an optical fiber amplifier which assures stable
operation of a pump light source and efficiently makes use of residual
pump power to achieve improvement in conversion efficiency. The optical
fiber amplifier includes a rare earth doped fiber. Pump light from a pump
light source is introduced into one end of the rare earth doped fiber by
way of a first optical coupler, and residual pump light originating from
the pump light and arriving at the other end of the rare earth doped
fiber is applied to the other rare earth doped fiber amplifier or the
loss compensation of a dispersion compensating fiber by Raman
amplification.