Chirp compensation capability of a semiconductor laser amplifier

Performance improvement is reported resulting from incorporating a semiconductor laser amplifier (SLA) as a post-transmitter-amplifier in long-haul directly modulated optical systems operating in the 1.5 mu m region. This improvement arises from reduction of the chirp produced by the semiconductor laser as the signal passes through the SLA. Eye closure penalty improvements in excess of 5 dB are observed for an illustrative long-haul 4.8 Gbit/s system.<>