Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme
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DS: Fachverband Dünne Schichten
DS 2: Nanophotonics - Devices II (Focused Session together with HL)
DS 2.3: Topical Talk
Monday, March 22, 2010, 15:00–15:30, H2
Semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA) for linear and nonlinear applications — •Wolfgang Freude1, René Bonk1, Thomas Vallaitis1, Andrej Marculescu1, Amita Kapoor2, Christian Meuer3, Dieter Bimberg3, Romain Brenot4, François Lelarge4, Guang-hua Duan4, and Juerg Leuthold1 — 1Inst. of Photonics and Quantum Electronics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany — 2On leave from Shaheed Rajguru College of Appl. Sciences for Women, Delhi, India — 3Inst. of Solid State Physics, TU Berlin, Germany — 4Alcatel-Thalès III-V Lab, Palaiseau, France
SOA characteristics for two selected applications are discussed, namely linear in-line amplification in gigabit passive optical networks (GPON), and fast nonlinear all-optical signal processing. As linear amplifiers, SOA feature moderate cost, low energy needs, 10… 25 dB gain in a bandwidth of 60… 120 nm, and a peak-gain range of 1.25… 1.60 µm.
In all-optical fast signal processing, SOA serve as regenerative wavelength converters, as nonlinear elements for four-wave mixing, and as switches. The respective application areas are determined by the SOA parameters gain, saturation power, recovery time, α-factor and noise figure.
Quantum-dot (QD) SOA are known for pattern-free amplification and fast cross-gain modulation. We demonstrate that QD SOA are also well suited as linear in-line amplifiers because of their large saturation power, wide dynamic range, large burst mode tolerance and small cross-phase modulation (XPM) due to a low α-factor. On the other hand, bulk SOA can be engineered for low saturation power and large α-factor, which enables nonlinear signal processing via XPM.