Reconfigurable all-optical logic gate using four-wave mixing (FWM) in HNLF for NRZ-PolSK signal

We demonstrate a reconfigurable all-optical logic gate for NRZ-PolSK signal based on FWM in a highly nonlinear fiber at 10 Gb/s. Half subtracter, XOR, AB?, āB or XNOR, AND, and NOR logic gates can be implemented simultaneously. The input power for the HNLF is optimized to be as low as about 15.2 dBm and the high Q factors above 8 dB for eye diagrams are achieved. Experimental results show Q factors of AB?, āB, AND, and NOR were higher than those of XOR, and XNOR. Error-free operation is achieved experimentally for 10 Gb/s 2⁷-1 pseudorandom bit sequence (PRBS) data. Power penalties for the logic gate are less than 3 dB. Simulation analysis about the wavelength characteristic for all logic gates is given and it predicts that the reconfigurable logic gate can realize error-free operation when the wavelength separation is less than 5 nm.     

40 Gb/s all-optical logic NOR and OR gates using a semiconductor optical amplifier: Experimental demonstration and theoretical analysis

We experimentally and theoretically demonstrate 40 Gb/s all-optical logic NOR and OR gates based on a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) and a blue shifted optical bandpass filter (OBF). Two kinds of data formats are discussed, namely return-to-zero (RZ) format and nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) format. The logic NOR and OR functions of RZ format are realized at the OBF detuning of −0.22 nm and −0.44 nm, respectively. The logic NOR function of NRZ format is realized at the OBF detuning of −0.24 nm. The simulation is in good agreement with the experimental results when the linewidth enhancement factor is 5.5. The simulation also shows that the SOA with large linewidth enhancement factor is preferred to achieve NOR and OR functions with good performance. The input data signal is of good pulsewidth-tolerance for NOR function, whereas not for OR function. The high Q factor could be obtained at narrow pulses injection.     

Design of ultra compact all-optical XOR and AND logic gates with low power consumption

We propose a novel ultra-compact all-optical XOR and AND logic gates without using nonlinear optics. In order to realize these devices, we adopt photonic crystal waveguides (PCWs) based on multi-mode interference devices. Numerical results show that the operating bandwidth of the ON to OFF logic-level contrast ratio of not less than 6.79 dB is 35 nm for XOR logic gate and 9 nm for AND logic gate. Proposed logic gates have the potential to be key components for an optical packet switching system due to their small feature sizes and low power consumption.     

One step towards the fabrication of a nanoscale Si-nc based laser cavity

In this paper, we report on the design of two major components of a laser architecture using Si-nc embedded in SiO₂ as the optical gain medium and sub-wavelength periodic structures to form the resonant cavity. Dimensions of the structures have been matched to near-infrared wavelengths (∼850 nm) of the maximum photoluminescent emission where optical gain has been observed from Si-nc. Both the front (FM) and rear (RM) mirrors have been fabricated by the implantation of Si ions (50 keV, 2×10¹⁷ Si⁺/cm²) through a mask, in order to produce a Bragg reflector by optical index contrast between the implanted and the non-implanted zones. Two closely spaced Bragg reflectors are used in the FM structure to allow a narrow bandpass (partial transmission) centered at 850 nm. The implanted structures have been annealed to produce Si-nc and passivation. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images show that the design dimensions of the structure have been obtained. Characterization of the structures by laser excitation reveals an optical gap in both mirrors between 825 and 870 nm, as per the design parameters. A quality factor Q∼95 and a reflectivity R∼0.2 have been measured for the FM. These results support the concept that a complete Si-nc based laser cavity can be built to emit coherent light.     

Simultaneous implementation of all-optical OR and AND logic gates for NRZ/RZ/CSRZ ON-OFF-keying signals

An all-optical scheme for simultaneously realizing OR and AND logic gates based on three-input four-wave mixing (FWM) arising in a single semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) is proposed and demonstrated. It has the ability to process not only conventional non-return-to-zero-ON-OFF-keying (NRZ-OOK) and return-to-zero-OOK (RZ-OOK) formats but also carrier-suppressed return-to-zero-OOK (CSRZ-OOK) format signals. Firstly, the performance of 40 Gb/s logic operation is numerically evaluated by a comprehensive dynamic SOA model considering three input signal induced FWM effect. Then, 10 Gb/s experimental demonstrations with clear waveforms and high extinction ratios (ERs) further verify the logic integrity of this scheme. Thus, the OR and AND logic gates simultaneously achieved within a single logic unit is compact and cost-effective for future optical signal processing applications.     

A new design of tunable four-port wavelength demultiplexer by photonic crystal ring resonators

A four-channel wavelength demultiplexer based on photonic crystal ring resonators (PCRR), which can be used for photonic integrated circuits, is designed. Dropping efficiency and Q factor of single improved ring are 100% and 842, respectively. In order to achieve the structure of demultiplexer, three improved rings have been used, that every ring has an individual inner rod radius; it means that each ring has a varying resonant wavelength. The results of simulation using finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method in our proposed structure reveals an average transmitted power higher than 90% for each output port, Channel spacing is about 8 nm and bandwidth for each individual channel is about 2.8 nm. The mean value of the crosstalk between output channels and the area of the proposed structure are about −29 dB and 317 μm², respectively. By changing the radius of inner rods, various wavelengths can be chosen, therefore this device is tunable.     

Proposal for nonlinear refractive index measurement using spectral ratio in modulated OFRR dynamics

A novel method for measuring the nonlinear refractive index of an optical fiber using a spectral ratio between the modulation frequency and a harmonic component in a modulated optical fiber ring resonator (OFRR) is proposed. The spectral ratio between the modulation frequency and the 2nd-harmonics generated by phase-modulation through the OFRR is increased with increasing the input light power and has peaks above 5 W input power, however, the peaks was shifted to the lower input power below 1 W by averaging taken into account of the phase distribution. A experimental setup consisted of an OFRR system and an Ar-laser as a pump light source was used to determine the nonlinear refractive index of an optical fiber. In the experimental results, the peaks of the spectral ratio as a function of the input power was found out at 0.8 W and 0.45 W of the input power corresponding to the input source line at 488.0 nm and 514.5 nm, respectively. The profile was similar to that obtained by the simulation and the nonlinear refractive index of a optical fiber was determined as 1.0 × 10⁻²² m²/V² by a relationship between the input power giving the peak and the nonlinear refractive index.     

WDM and DWDM optical filter based on 2D photonic crystal Thue–Morse structure

This paper describes elaboration of two dimensional photonic crystal structures based on Thue–Morse sequence. Our results establish that the optical properties of these aperiodic multilayer systems can be tailored by adjusting either the radius of some cells of the proposed structure or defect characteristics. We introduce a resonant cavity in the proposed structure to select desirable wavelengths for filtering. Bandwidth of selected wavelengths are about 1 nm and suitable for communication applications. Also, our simulations show that efficiency of the proposed structure is enough. The total footprint of proposed filter is 331.24 μm², therefore it is suitable to be integrated in all optical chips.     

All-optical demultiplexing of 4-ASK optical signals with four-wave mixing optical gates

A new all-optical technique to demultiplex quaternary-amplitude-shift keying (4-ASK) signals into two on-off keying (OOK) signals is proposed. We show that such quaternary-to-binary conversion may be performed with two types of optical gates (OGs); a first one that implements an S-shaped optical power transfer function (TF), which is also the characteristic TF of optical pulse reshaping devices, and a second type that implements a U-shaped TF. Furthermore, we describe a heuristic approach to design such OGs by using the fiber four-wave mixing effect in highly non-linear dispersion-shifted fibers. The performance of the technique is evaluated by simulating the demultiplexing of 4-ASK signals with these OGs. Results indicate that the proposed devices are able to provide binary signals with acceptable BERs even after the 4-ASK signals are propagated through a cascade of eight fiber links of 50 km followed by optical amplifiers with a 4.5-dB noise figure.     

An approach to enhance the receiver sensitivity with SOA for optical communication systems

In this paper, we investigate an SOA (semiconductor optical amplifier) preamplifier structure by optimizing the carrier lifetime in order to reduce the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise and crosstalk, with adequate gain increase. This proposed SOA optical preamplifier has no need of optical alignment and antireflection coating. This structure of SOA eliminates the need of optical filter, and exhibits large tolerance to the input light wavelength. The receiver sensitivity is investigated for single and multi channel transmission links. The received power of − 50.34 dBm is observed at bit error rate (BER) 10^− 12 for 10 Gb/s with PIN receiver. Further, the impact of gain, amplified spontaneous emission power and gain variation for different carrier lifetime with input power for OOK system is illustrated. The proposed SOA has constant gain of 30.06 dB up to gain saturation for carrier lifetime 0.18 ns. It is predicted that low value of carrier lifetime suffers less from ASE noise.     

Narrowband optical filter design for DWDM communication applications based on Generalized Aperiodic Thue-Morse structures

We present here a novel proposal for multichannel narrowband DWDM filter design, based on Generalized Aperiodic Thue-Morse (GATM) multilayer structures. Transmission spectra of light propagation through these structures are studied in this article. Numerical simulations in this research show an ultra high efficiency and a very low crosstalk for this filter so that the total transmission of filter output channels is up to 100% and the range of output wavelength is 1550 nm which is suitable for DWDM communication systems. By studying the effects of parameters of GATM structure, we realized that by varying parameters such as number of layers, distance between layers, refractive index of layers, etc., a suitable DWDM filter can be accomplished, which is in accordance with the communication ITU-T standard. This narrowband DWDM filter has capability of changing the number of channels and the bandwidth of each channel, at the special wavelength. By changing the thickness of each layer, the transmittance wavelength of the filter will change. The main advantage of the Thue-Morse structure is the numbers of selective layers, which in our designed structure, we choose GATM(3,2) where m = 3 and n = 2 in B^mAⁿ, and for the first time we change both m and n simultaneously in the proposed structure to control optical properties of the introduced filter.     

Splitting-on-demand optical power splitters using multimode interference (MMI) waveguide with programmed modulations

Reconfigurable multi-channel optical power splitter is proposed and its optical properties are calculated. The device can dynamically reconfigure the number of splitting channels by providing programmed refractive index modulations on a multimode interference (MMI) waveguide. A reconfigurable 3-channel optical power splitter is designed to work as 1 × 1, 1 × 2 or 1 × 3 optical power splitter depending on the state of the heat electrodes using thermo-optic modulation, and the input light can be distributed to three output channels with sequential orders. The device can work in the whole C-band (1530-1565 nm) with extinction ratio better than −29.0 dB, excess loss better than −0.45 dB, imbalance better than 0.08 dB and polarization dependent loss (PDL) better than 0.14 dB. The design conception is scalable to a multi-channel splitting-on-demand optical power splitter which can divide input light to 1, 2, …, N output channels equally by using the 3-channel reconfigurable optical power splitter as a building block.     

Design and analysis of all-optical 4–2 binary encoder based on photonic crystal

In this paper we theoretically propose combining optical waveguides with nonlinear photonic crystal based ring resonators for realizing an all optical 4–2 encoder. Nonlinear resonant rings are constructed from GaAs as the material used for dielectric rods. By application of optical beam to input ports of the structure the on/off states are realized and the resulting truth table confirms functionality of proposed device. The switching threshold and time delay of the device are about 1 kW/µm² and 1 ps, respectively. The normalized power at the output ports for all the ports in ON states is the same and equal to 60%.     

Impact of extinction ratio of single arm sin LiNbO3 Mach-Zehnder modulator on the performance of 10 and 20 Gb/s NRZ optical communication system

We investigate the impact of extinction ratio of single arm sin² LiNbO₃ Mach-Zehnder (MZ) amplitude modulator on the performance of 10 and 20 Gb/s single-channel optical communication system. For different fiber lengths, the system performance has been analyzed with the increase in the extinction ratio. The effect of variation in dispersion parameter has also been illustrated. The impact of extinction ratio (ζ), dispersion parameter and length of the fiber has been further optimized with minimum bit error rate (BER) at optimal decision threshold (10⁻⁹) for 10 and 20 Gb/s bit rate. It is found that the system gives optimum performance at extinction ratio (ζ) value 20 dB. The increase in the transmission distance from 468 km for 10 Gb/s to 532 km for 20 Gb/s has been reported, and 8 dB improvement in the Q value has been observed as the value of ζ is increased from 10 to 20 dB. At 20 Gb/s, the system gives optimum performance for dispersion parameter value only up to 4 ps/nm km; however, at 10 Gb/s the system can operate for dispersion values up to 14.3 ps/nm km. Further we investigate the self-phase modulation (SPM) effect for the increase in the input power. It is observed that the SPM effect is negligible below 3 dB m input power and it increases at higher power levels.     

EAM-SOA millimeter-wave frequency up-converter for radio-over-fiber applications

We present an optical scheme for photonic frequency up-conversion at the millimeter-wave bands based on Semiconductor Optical Amplifier. The proposed scheme modulates the bias current with the Intermediate Frequency in order to achieve frequency mixing of an incoming optical signal modulated with the Local Oscillator. Theory indicates that the proposed scheme supports data bandwidths in the tens of GHz for LO values above 10 GHz. This scheme allows for photonic integration of the considered optical devices. A laboratory demonstration of the scheme for up-conversion to the 40 GHz band, using narrow-band IF signals, showed relatively low thresholds for the optical input power and bias current level to achieve error free operation: − 14.5 dBm 100 mA for a 64-QAM signal. Spurious-Free Dynamic Range showed an acceptable performance, with a linearity about 52.5 dB·Hz^2/3 for an optical input power of − 6 dBm.     

Ultra-high detectivity room temperature THZ-IR photodetector based on resonant tunneling spherical centered defect quantum dot (RT-SCDQD)

In this paper, a novel structure for THZ-IR photodetector based on resonant tunneling spherical centered defect quantum dot (RT-SCDQD) operating at room temperature is proposed. The proposed structure includes a quantum dot with centered defect following a resonant tunneling double barrier. It is shown that inserting a centered defect leads to considerable enhancement in absorption coefficient at long wavelength in small dot size (1.05 × 10⁶-7.33 × 10⁶ m⁻¹ at 83 μm). This effect guarantees large responsivity of the proposed system for THZ-IR photodetector. In this proposal, intersublevel transitions in related states positioned at mid energies of large conduction-band-offset materials (GaN/AlGaN) are used to depress the thermal effect in dark current. Adding the resonant tunneling double barrier to the quantum dot resolves the basic problem of collecting electrons from deep excited state without applying large bias voltage. Also, employing the RT double barrier reduces the ground state dark current term. Reduction of the dark current and increasing the responsivity yields ultra-high detectivity, 5 × 10¹⁶ and 2.25 × 10⁹ cm Hz^1/2/W at 83 μm, at 83 and 300 K, respectively. Analysis of the proposed structure is done analytically.     

Investigation of crystal structure and new ellipsometric properties of hexagonal CdS epilayers

High quality hexagonal CdS epilayer was grown on GaAs (1 1 1) substrates by the hot-wall epitaxy method. The crystal structure of the grown CdS epilayers was confirmed to be the hexagonal structure by X-ray diffraction pattern and scanning electron microscopy image. The optical properties of the hexagonal CdS epilayers were investigated in a wide photon energy range between 2.0 and 8.5 eV using spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) at room temperature. The data obtained by SE were analyzed to find the critical points of the pseudodielectric function spectra, 〈?(E)〉 = 〈?₁(E)〉 + i〈?₂(E)〉, such as E₀, E_1A, E_1B, E^0′, F₁, and two E₂ structures. In addition, the second derivative spectra, d²?(E)/dE², of the pseudodielectric function of hexagonal CdS epilayers were numerically calculated to determine the critical structures. Four structures, such as E^0′F₁, and two E₂ structures, from 6.0 eV to 8.0 eV were observed, for the first time, at 300 K by ellipsometric measurements for the hexagonal CdS epilayers.     

Four-operand parallel optical computing using shadow-casting technique

Optical shadow-casting (OSC) technique has shown excellent potential for optically implementing two-operand parallel logic gates and array logic operations. The 16 logic functions for two binary patterns (variables) are optically realizable in parallel by properly configuring an array of 2×2 light emitting diodes. In this paper, we propose an enhanced OSC technique for implementing four-operand parallel logic gates. The proposed system is capable of performing 2¹⁶ logic functions by simply programming the switching mode of an array of 4×4 light emitting diodes in the input plane. This leads to an efficient and compact realization scheme when compared to the conventional two-operand OSC system.     

Cardinality enhancement of spectral/spatial modified double weight code optical code division multi-access system by PIIN suppression

A new two-dimensional (2-D) optical code division multiple access (OCDMA) scheme to increase the achievable system capacity is proposed. The code exhibits good cross-correlation property time and wavelength shift. Performances are analyzed on code size and correlation properties affecting two important system parameters, bit error rate (BER) as a function of cardinality generated and optical power transmission requirement. The proposed system can effectively suppress phase-induced intensity noise (PIIN) and has multi-access interference (MAI) cancellation property. Results in a good agreement indicate that 2-D modified double weight (MDW) offers 163.7% and 336.2% larger cardinality compare to 2-D perfect difference code (PDC) and 2-D modified quadratic congruence (MQC) code. By increasing spatial code (N) and keeps similar code length system performance can be further optimized. 2-D MDW (M = 45, N = 18) accommodates 252.2% and 18.3% cardinality increment and low effective transmitted power (P_sr) at −17.9 dBm, compare to 2-D MDW (M = 247, N = 3) and (M = 84, N = 9) at 10⁻⁹ BER error floor. The architecture of the spectral/spatial MDW OCDMA system with property of MAI cancellation is presented.     

Realization of XNOR logic function with all-optical high contrast XOR and NOT gates

In this article, we propose the realization of XNOR logic function by using all-optical XOR and NOT logic gates. Initially, both XOR and NOT gates are designed, simulated and optimized for high contrast outputs. T-shaped waveguides are created on the photonic crystal platform to realize these logic gates. An extra input is used to perform the inversion operation in the NOT gate. Inputs in both the gates are applied with out of phase so as to have a destructive interference between them and produce negligible intensity for logic ‘0'. The XOR and NOT gates are simulated using Finite Difference Time Domain method which results with a high contrast ratio of 55.23?dB and 54.83?dB, respectively at a response time of 0.136?ps and 0.1256?ps. Later, both the gates are cascaded by superimposing the output branch of the waveguide of XOR gate with the input branch of the waveguide of NOT gate so that it can be resulted with compact size for XNOR logic function. The resultant structure of XNOR logic came out with the contrast ratio of 12.27?dB at a response time of 0.1588?ps. Finally, it can be concluded that the proposed structures with fair output performance can suitably be applied in the design of photonic integrated circuits for high speed computing and telecommunication systems.