  It has been shown theoretically that a light amplifier working on the
physical principle of stimulated emission should achieve optimal quantum
cloning of the polarization state of light. We demonstrate close-to-optimal
universal quantum cloning of polarization in a standard fiber amplifier for
telecom wavelengths. For cloning 1 --> 2 we find a fidelity of 0.82, the
optimal value being 5/6 = 0.83.
