Gain and phase recovery of optically excited semiconductor optical amplifiers

An investigation of the recovery dynamics of semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) explains why the ultrafast component of the gain recovery is largely absent in the phase response. The time-resolved gain and phase dynamics of a bulk GaInAs SOA are measured using a pump-probe technique and differences between the gain and phase recoveries are highlighted and explained using Kramers-Kronig analysis. These have important implications for optical signal processing.     

Transmission performance analysis of 8/spl times/10 Gb/s WDM signals using cascaded SOAs due to signal wavelength displacement

We have analyzed the transmission performance of 8/spl times/10 Gb/s wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) signals due to crosstalk in cascaded conventional semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs). Using two different methods, the crosstalk over the whole gain bandwidth in SOAs is calculated to be 2-5 dB lower for the positive detuning. Then, transmission performance of 8/spl times/10 Gb/s WDM signals up to 6/spl times/40 km span in terms of receiver sensitivity is estimated over various transmission distances using cascaded SOAs for the positive signal wavelength displacement of 30, 40, and 50 nm. Especially for 50 nm detuning, transmission performances with and without using a reservoir channel are similar to each other. Our results suggest that SOAs can be used as an optical amplifier for displacement larger than 50 nm without using the reservoir channel.     

Ultrafast all-optical AND gate based on cascaded SOAs with assistance of optical filters

An ultrafast all-optical logic AND gate is realised based on two cascaded Semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) each followed by an optical filter to accelerate the effective recovery process of the SOAs. 40 Gbit/s operation with return-to-zero signals has been achieved with SOAs, the 90-10% recovery time of which is much greater than the single bit period. Clear open eyes with quality factor of 6.3 are observed. The proposed AND gate has a potentially loose requirement on input pulse width     

Theoretical investigation of 8 /spl times/ 10-Gb/s WDM signal transmission performance based on gain-equalized SOAs using backward Raman pumping at DCF

We have theoretically investigated 8 /spl times/ 10-Gb/s wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) signal transmission characteristics based on semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) with equalized gain using discrete Raman amplification (DRA). Gain equalization and low noise figures have been obtained by adjusting the backward Raman pumping power and wavelength at a dispersion compensating fiber (DCF) for each span. Bit-error-rate characteristics were calculated for 8 /spl times/ 10-Gb/s WDM signal transmission over 6 /spl times/ 40-km single-mode fiber (SMF) + DCF links with gain-equalized SOAs using DRAs at DCF. Approximately a 2.5-dB improvement of the receiver sensitivity was achieved by using SOAs and DRAs with optimized Raman pumping. One can easily upgrade the transmission length of a link based on SOAs with an appropriate backward pump laser at each DCF.     

Carrier Dynamics of Quantum-Dot, Quantum-Dash, and Quantum-Well Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers Operating at 1.55 μm

We assess the influence of the degree of quantum confinement on the carrier recovery times in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) through an experimental comparative study of three amplifiers, one InAs-InGaAsP-InP quantum dot (0-D), one InAs-InAlGaAs-InP quantum dash (1-D), and one InGaAsP-In-GaAsP-InP quantum well (2-D), all of which operate near 1.55-mum wavelengths. The short-lived (around 1 ps) and long-lived (up to 2 ns) amplitude and phase dynamics of the three devices are characterized via heterodyne pump-probe measurements. The quantum-dot device is found to have the shortest long-lived gain recovery (~80 ps) as well as gain and phase changes indicative of a smaller linewidth enhancement factor, making it the most promising for high-bit-rate applications. The quantum-dot amplifier is also found to have reduced ultrafast transients, due to a lower carrier density in the dots. The quantum-dot gain saturation characteristics and temporal dynamics also provide insight into the nature of the dot energy-level occupancy and the interactions of the dot states with the wetting layer.     

实现全光非归零码波长转换的Sagnac环中SOA特性优化的研究

本文研究基于半导体光放大器（SOA）的萨格纳克（Sagnac）环,实现对非归零码（NRZ）信号的全光波长转换。针对40 Gbit/s及以上速率,采用自建的、同时考虑带间载流子填充效应与带内载流子动态效应的SOA数学模型,全面分析了SOA的载流子特性及其长度对NRZ全光波长转换的影响。结果表明,SOA载流子恢复时间介于2至3倍的比特时长之间时,可以获得最佳的NRZ波长转换性能,并且Sagnac环应采用长度较短的SOA。     

Transmission of 2-ps optical pulses at 1550 nm over 40-km standardfiber using midspan optical phase conjugation in semiconductor opticalamplifiers

We demonstrate transmission of 2-ps optical pulses at 1550 nm over 40 km of standard fiber by employing midspan optical phase conjugation in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs). The second-order group-velocity dispersion of the fiber is completely compensated and the third-order dispersion becomes a major transmission limitation. This experiment shows that the midspan optical phase conjugation system using SOAs is applicable to ultrahigh bit rates greater than 100 Gb/s     

Analytical Solution for SOA-Based All-Optical Wavelength Conversion Using Transient Cross-Phase Modulation

All-optical wavelength conversion (WC) based on transient cross-phase modulation (T-XPM) of semiconductor optical amplifier (SOAs) is a promising approach to accelerate the gain recovery of SOAs. An analytical solution is deduced to explain the polarity variation of WC based on T-XPM of SOAs from the viewpoint of the impulse response functions. We conclude that both inverted and noninverted WCs can be realized when the central wavelength of the optical bandpass filter is either blue-shifted or red-shifted with respect to the wavelength of the probe signal. We are able to validate the formula against our experimental results recently published     

Transmission performance of 10-Gb/s 1550-nm transmitters using semiconductor optical amplifiers as booster amplifiers

We have demonstrated the transmission performance of 10-Gb/s transmitters based on LiNbO/sub 3/ modulator using semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) as booster amplifiers. Utilizing the negative chirp converted in SOAs and self-phase modulation induced by high optical power, we can successfully transmit 10-Gb/s optical signals over 80 km through the standard single-mode fiber with the transmitter using SOAs as booster amplifiers. SOAs can be used for booster amplifiers with a careful adjustment of the operating conditions. In order to further understand an SOA's characteristics as a booster amplifier, we model SOAs and other subsystems to verify the experimental results. Based on the good agreement between the experimental and simulation results, we can find the appropriate parameters of input signals for SOAs, such as extinction ratio, rising/falling time, and chirp parameter to maximize output dynamic range and available maximum output power (P/sub o,max/).     

Reconfigurable All-Optical Logic Gates for Multi-Input Differential Phase-Shift Keying Signals: Design and Experiments

Differential phase-shift keying (DPSK) signals are promising candidate for the long-haul transmission systems. However, the development of the all-optical signal processing techniques for the DPSK signals is still in its infancy, especially the all-optical logic operations. In this work, a general scheme for reconfigurable logic gates for multi-input DPSK signals with integration possibility is proposed. Benefiting from the optical logic minterms developed by two kinds of optical devices, i.e., optical delay interferometers and semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs), target logic functions can be realized by combining specific minterms together. The scheme is reconfigured by changing the phase control of the delay interferometers or the input wavelengths. The latter approach was adopted in the experimental trials. Although the outputs of the scheme are on-off keying (OOK) signals, the data format is compatible with all-optical decision circuits where OOK format is preferred. Two- and three-input experiments are carried out at 20 Gbit/s with nonreturn-to-zero DPSK signals. Various logic operations are demonstrated, including full sets of two- and three-input minterms, AND, NOR, XOR, and XNOR logic operations where the AND and NOR logic are derived simultaneously and the XOR and XNOR logic are convertible. The optical SNR as well as the Q-factor of the two- and three-input results are measured and compared. It shows that the input powers to the SOAs are critical in achieving good extinction ratio and the Q-factor of logic results degrades when several minterms are combined. The recovery time of the SOAs need to be optimized as well. Finally, the scaling issues of the scheme are discussed.     

Phase dynamics of semiconductor optical amplifiers at 10-40 GHz

The phase dynamics that occur in bulk InGaAsP-InP semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) in response to picosecond pulse excitations at 10 and 40 GHz are studied experimentally and numerically for various amplifier lengths. The time dependencies of the phase changes and of the absolute gain of the amplifier are measured simultaneously. The total phase shifts induced by 1.5-ps pulses at 10 GHz are higher than /spl pi/ in SOAs with active region lengths between 0.5 and 2 mm and exceed 2/spl pi/ in a 1.5-mm-long amplifier. Phase shifts above /spl pi/ are measured at 40 GHz in 1.5- and 2-mm-long SOAs. The dependence of the total phase shift on the amplifier bias current and length and on pump pulse energy is investigated. Numerical simulations based on a comprehensive time-domain SOA model allow us to confirm the experimental results for a wide range of amplifier parameters. In particular, SOAs with lengths up to 5 mm have been modeled, and the calculations suggest that the maximum phase shifts occur in amplifiers of approximately 2-mm length. The phase dynamics measurements are illustrated at the example of an optical time division multiplexing add-drop multiplexer, based on a SLALOM switch, gated by 10- or 40-GHz control pulses. We find that simultaneous good dropping and clearing is possible if the length and the operating conditions of the SOA in the switch are chosen such as to induce a full /spl pi/ phase shift.     

All-optical logic NOR gate using two-cascaded semiconductor optical amplifiers

The authors present a novel all-optical logic NOR gate using two-cascaded semiconductor optical. amplifiers (SOAs) in a counterpropagating feedback configuration. This configuration accentuates the gain nonlinearity due to the mutual gain modulation of the two SOAs. The all-optical NOR gate feasibility has been demonstrated delivering an extinction ratio higher than 12 dB over a wide range of wavelength.     

Analysis of optical phase-conjugate characteristics of picosecondfour-wave mixing signals in semiconductor optical amplifiers

We have analyzed for the first time the optical phase-conjugate characteristics of picosecond four-wave mixing (FWM) signals in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) using the finite-difference beam propagation method (FD-BPM). We show that the optical phase-conjugate characteristics of the FWM signals are strongly dependent on input pump pulsewidths. As a typical example, we have demonstrated that SOAs act as an ideal phase-conjugator, within the confines of reversing the chirp of optical pulses, for a 10-ps input pump pulse and a ~2.2-ps linearly chirped input probe pulse. When the pulsewidth of pump pulse becomes short, the minimum compressed pulsewidth is obtained by using a fiber shorter in length than the input fiber, but having the same group velocity dispersion as the input fiber. For a much shorter pump pulse such as 1 ps, the short FWM signal can be obtained via the gating characteristics of the FWM. However, only a part of the phase information is copied to the FWM signal due to such gating characteristics. The phase information is also degraded due to the fast nonlinear effect in the SOA. Thus, the pulsewidth is not compressed by propagation through a dispersive medium     

Technique for suppression of pattern dependence in a semiconductor-optical-amplifier wavelength converter

Wavelength converters that employ cross-gain modulation (XGM) in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) are limited in bit rate by the amplifier's pattern dependent response. We substantially suppress this pattern dependence by converting the phase modulation at the data transitions to amplitude modulation using a fiber grating filter. We use this technique to obtain error-free wavelength conversion of 10-Gb/s nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) data using an SOA that showed an error floor at 10/sup -5/ bit-error rate (BER) when used alone.     

Quantum-Dot Semiconductor Mode-Locked Lasers and Amplifiers at 40 GHz

Mode-locked lasers (MLLs) and semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) based on quantum-dot (QD) gain material will impact the development of next-generation networks, such as the 100 Gb/s Ethernet. MLLs presently consisting of a monolithic two-section device already generate picosecond pulse trains at 40 GHz. Temperature dependence of pulsewidth for p-doped devices, a detailed chirp analysis that is a prerequisite for optical time-division multiplexing applications, and data transmission experiments are presented in this paper. QD SOAs show superior performance for linear amplification as well as nonlinear signal processing. Using cross-gain modulation for wavelength conversion, QD SOAs are shown to have a small signal bandwidth beyond 40 GHz under high-bias current injection. This makes QD SOAs much superior to conventional SOAs.      

Semiconductor optical amplifiers in WDM tree-net

In this paper, effectiveness of semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) in tree-net in terms of increase in the number of users has been investigated. In the analysis, SOAs with (i) unsaturated gain, (ii) average gain saturation, and (iii) average gain saturation with gain fluctuations have been considered. Further, the results for the tree-net are compared with those for the star network. It is observed that tree-net supports more number of users than star for a given number of SOAs     

半导体光放大器(SOA)皮秒增益和折射率非线性的数值模拟

从速率方程出发 ,采用分段模型对半导体光放大器 (SOA)的皮秒增益和折射率非线性进行了数值模拟 ,具体分析了注入光脉冲引起的载流子浓度的变化、输出光脉冲时域波形的畸变、注入光脉冲引起的增益和位相变化 ,以及输出光脉冲上的频率啁啾。     

Extremely fast high-gain and low-current SOA by optical speed-up at transparency

We propose a new configuration for semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs), called optical speed-up at transparency (OSAT), which allows to speed up the gain recovery of SOAs and their saturation power without sacrificing the gain, nor increasing the applied current. The proposed configuration is particularly well-suited for high-speed WDM or OTDM applications. It consists of an optical CW-signal injected at the transparency point of the SOA. This setup is potentially integrable on a single chip, and still relatively flexible once the device is realized.     

Low-Complexity Compensation of SOA Nonlinearity for Single-Channel PSK and OOK

Carrier density fluctuations in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) impose penalties on phase-shift keying (PSK) signals due to nonlinear phase noise (NLPN), and on-off keying (OOK) signals due to self-gain modulation. In this paper, we propose a simple scheme to equalize the impairments induced by SOA nonlinearities, derived from the small signal analysis of carrier density fluctuations. We demonstrate via simulation almost complete cancelation of the NLPN added by a saturated SOA on a differential PSK signal. We demonstrate via both simulations and experiment the effectiveness of the method for mitigation of nonlinear distortions imposed by SOAs on an OOK signal.      

WDM-POLSK Transmission Systems by Using Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers

The authors demonstrate the potential of using POLarization Shift Keying (POLSK) modulation format combined with semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) transmission systems. The constant intensity of the POLSK modulation format allows for substantial removal of cross-gain-modulation impairments in SOAs so that practical amplifier spacing values (more than 100 km) are demonstrated in various different experimental configurations. Record WDM transmission experiments at 10 Gb/s by using SOA-based amplification are presented in short and medium reach system architectures using either single mode fiber or nonzero dispersion shifted fiber