An ultra-broadband amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) source was proposed and demonstrated by using a combination of a novel 247 cm Bismuth-based Erbium-doped fiber and a conventional 10 m Erbium-doped fiber in a configuration of bi-directional pumps. The physical mechanism was explained and the performance was compared with those for some other similar configurations. Without any external spectral filters and with a total pump power of less than 240 mW,an ASE source with a wavelength range of 96 nm (1 522 nm～1 618 nm, over -20 dBm/2 nm)and a total output power of over 11 dBm was achieved by optimizing the EDFs' lengths and the pump powers. The -10 dB bandwidth and the peak power density of the output spectrum are over 87 nm and -2.5 dBm/2 nm, respectively.作者简介：CHEN Da-ru,Tel:0571-88206515-227 Email:daru@coer.zju.edu.cn