Comparative analysis of the effects of internal lasing oscillation and external light injection on semiconductor optical amplifier performance

One of the key differences of a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) with internal lasing oscillation (ILO) from a SOA with external light injection (ELI) lies in a carrier-sharing mechanism. Since the internal lasing mode shares the same pool of carriers with the signals, the carriers (or photons) withdrawn from the circulating laser mode speed up the gain recovery. On the other hand, the external light injected into the SOA shortens the carrier recovery time through optical pumping without any carrier sharing involved. To find out a better scheme, we have made a comparative investigation on the effects of the ILO and ELI on the SOA performance. It turns out by way of simulation that the ELI scheme provides faster gain recovery, shorter carrier lifetime, and higher saturation power when the external injection power is higher than the internal lasing power. The performance enhancement is not so pronounced with the carrier-sharing mechanism, as the internal lasing mode itself gives rise to severe longitudinal spatial hole burning (LSHB). Nevertheless, the ILO scheme is preferable for linear-amplification applications. We also examine the use of the ELI for low-crosstalk optical amplifiers. It is found that the ELI scheme does not bring in a very strong resonance peak in the crosstalk, which appears in a SOA with ILO due to relaxation oscillations of the lasing mode. In comparison to the ILO in SOAs, the ELI into SOAs is likely to leave more optical gain for multi-channel amplification without any sacrifice on the crosstalk.     

多电极半导体光放大器对增益特性的改善

提出了采用多电极实现电流非均匀注入来改变半导体光放大器(SOA)内部的载流子分布,从而改变其增益饱和特性的一种新的方案.用SOA分段模型的计算结果表明,与单电极均匀注入电流的SOA 相比,在同样的总注入电流下,对一个两电极SOA采用前面小后面大的非均匀电流注入,可以提高饱和输出功率和饱和输入功率.而采用前面大后面小的电流注入方式,则将使SOA更容易发生饱和,不仅饱和输出功率与饱和输入功率减小,而且增益谱在饱和后的压缩程度加大,增益谱压缩的对称性提高.对多电极SOA,可以方便灵活地调节各节之间的长度比和注入电流比来满足不同的应用要求.     

半导体光放大器引起的串扰及其抑制技术

由于半导体光放大器(SOA)的增益饱和效应,在波分复用系统中.每个信道的增益受到复用的其它信道的影响.SOA引起的各信道之间的串扰严重限制了其应用.理论研究了SOA增益饱和效应引起的信道间串扰.数值模拟了多路信道复用时系统的误码率随复用信道数和光功率的变化情况,发现随着复用信道数的增加SOA增益饱和引起的信道间串扰越来越严重.对SOA中串扰的抑制方法进行了理论和实验研究.数值模拟发现连续光注入可以抑制输出功率的波动,从而减小误码率,当复用10个信道时,连续光注入可以使功率代价减小2 dB;实验验证了两信道的40 Gb/s系统中,注入连续光可以减少SOA引起的信道间串扰.     

SOA动态增益特性的理论和实验研究

提出了SOA有效增益恢复时间的概念，同时推导了有效增益恢复时间的解析表达式.针对SOA在交叉增益调制型波长转换方面的应用，从理论上分析了注入电流、探测光功率、有源区长度对增益恢复时间的影响，实验测量了不同条件下SOA的增益恢复时间，实验结果与理论计算结果相符合. 关键词： 半导体光放大器 增益恢复时间 全光波长转换器     

半导体光放大器增益及发光特性的理论研究

半导体光放大器(SOA)的非线性特性在光开关、波长变换、光逻辑运算中有重要的应用.研究了注入电流、入射光波长及SOA有源区长度对SOA增益和发光功率的影响.数值模拟结果表明:注入电流的增加,会引起载流子浓度的增加,且使SOA增益趋于饱和的速率加快;不同的SOA模型存在一个最佳输入光波长,在此波长附近有较好的增益特性;加长半导体光放大器有源区长度可获得更大增益,同时提高了器件的响应速率.     

A pump power controlled 1,060 nm multiwavelength fiber ring laser using nonlinear polarization rotation of SOA

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a both channel spacing and wavelength-tunable 1,060 nm multiwavelength fiber laser using nonlinear polarization rotation of semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). The SOA in the cavity can not only provide the gain but also generate a pump power controlled phase-shift between two orthogonal linear states of polarization. The experimental result shows that the fast and continuous wavelength tuning is achieved with external light injection, while the channel spacing of the multiwavelength laser can be varied by adjusting the length of polarization maintaining fiber. When an external laser source with 13 dBm power is injected into the SOA as a control pump, optically tunable operation of up to 20 wavelength channels, from 1,042 to 1,058 nm, with a wavelength spacing of 0.8 nm has been demonstrated with the signal-to-spontaneous-noise ratio over 40 dB at room temperature. The lasers are stable with a maximum power fluctuation per channel of less than 0.5 dB during 2-h test.     

Tunable 19 × 10 GHz L-band FP-SOA based multi-wavelength mode-locked fiber laser

We present a multi-wavelength mode-locked fiber ring laser incorporating a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) and a Fabry-Perot semiconductor optical amplifier (FP-SOA). Because the gain of the SOA is depleted by an external injection optical signal, the SOA acts as a loss modulator. The FP-SOA serves as a tunable comb filter. The presented laser source can generate 19 synchronized wavelength channels with the extinction ratio of about 21 dB, each mode-locked at 10 GHz, and mode-locked pulse width is about 40 ps. Oscillation wavelengths band can be tuned by adjusting the bias current of the SOA, and wavelength spacing also can be changed by using a tunable optical delay line (ODL) or a temperature controller. The polarization-insensitive devices ensure that the output power is rather stable. This fiber laser has potential applications in longer waveband (L-band) within the low-attenuation window.     

All-optical XNOR and AND gates simultaneously realized in a single semiconductor optical amplifier with improved dynamics

All-optical XNOR and AND logic gates using four-wave mixing (FWM) and cross-gain modulation (XGM) in a single semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) with improved dynamics are simultaneously realized. By numerical simulation, the effects of the input optical wave powers and injection current on the critical factors of the logic gate performances, such as the ON--OFF contrast ratio, the power-output level of the logic `1', and the difference between power outputs of the logic `1', are investigated in detail. In addition, the effect of the counter-propagating CW pump on the gain recovery is analysed.     

Minimization of Cross-Gain Saturation in Wavelength Division Multiplexing by Optimizing Differential Gain in Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers

We successfully simulated the 10 × 40 Gbit/s soliton RZ-DPSK WDM signals over 1050 km with spectral efficiency approaching 0.4 bit/s/Hz using semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) as in-line amplifier. The cross-gain saturation of SOA can be minimized by settling crosstalk at a lower level by decreasing the differential gain. This decrease in differential gain is in such a way that we get nil power penalty. The maximum transmission distance of 1050 km is possible with differential gain 210 atto cm² of SOA.

The impact of amplification factor, ASE noise power, crosstalk, quality factor and bit error rate for different differential gain has been investigated. It has been shown that with the increase in differential gain of SOA, the transmission distance goes on decreasing. At high value of differential gain 2.5 × 10^-16 cm² for the transmission distance 1050 km, all channels produce inter channel crosstalk with bit error rate greater than 10^-6. But for lower differential gain 190 atto cm², the quality of all channel increases at the cost of large power penalty.

With slight increase in differential gain 200 atto cm², the maximum transmission distance observed is 4550 km with quality of received signal more than 15 dB and having nil power penalty. We observed clear eye diagrams and optical power spectra for received signal with transmission distance 1050 km and 4550 km using soliton RZ-DPSK system. The bit error rate for all channels increase more than 10^-10 with the increase in launched input power that is due to power saturation.     

All-optical phase and amplitude regeneration of return-to-zero differential phase shift keying data

We report a novel implementation of an all-optical rephasing, reshaping, and reamplification differential phase shift keying (DPSK) regenerator. The rephasing is based on converting phase noise into amplitude noise by using an interferometric configuration and then eliminating the amplitude noise by using a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). The reshaping is performed using gain competition and gain compression in a saturated SOA. The scheme was tested using 10Gbit/s, 2(23)-1 pseudorandom bit sequence return-to-zero DPSK data. The measurement shows removal of the degraded data error floor with a 6 order-of-magnitude improvement in bit-error rate. The measured negative power penalty is about 4dB. Mathematical analysis shows a reduction in DPSK phase-noise power by half.     

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.     

Polarization dependence of electroluminescence from closely-stacked and columnar quantum dots

Quantum dots (QDs) have a potential for application in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs), due to their high saturation power related to the low differential gain, fast gain recovery and wide gain spectrum compared to quantum wells. Besides all advantages, QDs realized by Stranski-Krastanov growth mode have a flat shape which leads to a gain anisotropy and a related transverse magnetic (TM) and -electric (TE) polarization dependence as compared to bulk material. This has so far prevented their applications in SOAs. It has been suggested that control of optical polarization anisotropy of the QD can be obtained through QD shape engineering, in closely stacked or columnar QDs (CQDs). To this aim, we have fabricated and tested SOA structures based on closely-stacked and columnar QDs. Closely-stacked InAs QDs with 4, 6 and 10 nm GaAs spacer showed a minor improvement in the ratio of TM and TE integrated electroluminescence (EL) over standard QDs along with a strong reduction in efficiency. In contrast, a large improvement was obtained in CQDs, depending on the number of stacked submonolayers which can be attributed to the more symmetric shape of columnar QDs. A relatively small spectral separation (ΔE ~ 21 meV) between TE- and TM-EL peaks has been observed showing that heavy- and light hole-like states, respectively are energetically close in these QDs. These results indicate that columnar QDs have a significant potential for polarization-independent QD SOA.     

包含两个半导体光放大器的锁模光纤环形激光器数值研究

采用自再现理论,对一种包含两个半导体光放大器的锁模光纤环形激光器进行了数值研究.研究结果表明：为了提高谐波锁模输出脉冲的质量,调制半导体光放大器应当保持高直流偏置,对自发辐射信号进行调制并提供锁模脉冲克服腔损耗所需的增益,而此时的增益半导体光放大器则被低直流偏置充当增益补偿器维持较窄的净增益窗口;与之相反,为了获得振幅均衡的有理数谐波锁模输出脉冲,调制半导体光放大器则应当偏置在较低的电流上,而增益半导体光放大器应当保持较高的偏置电流以提供足够的常量增益克服腔损耗.此外,还必须提高注入光信号的峰值功率.     

OOK-to-QPSK modulation-format conversion based on two gain-transparent SOAs

In this paper, the system scheme of on–off keying (OOK) to quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) format conversion is proposed, which is based on two gain-transparent semiconductor optical amplifiers (GT-SOA). GT-SOA is used as a simple all-optical phase modulator, which is no effects of cross gain modulation and four-wave mixing existing in conventional SOA. The assistant light is used to speed up the SOA carrier recovery time. The principles of OOK to QPSK format conversion are expounded. The influences of the assistant light power and signal light power on the conversions are numerically analyzed. The OOK signal can still be exactly converted to the QPSK signal with the power of OOK signal being changed within a certain range.     

半导体光放大器的稳态增益饱和特性

高速全光逻辑门是实现光分组交换、光计算和未来高速大容量光传输的关键器件,近年来受到广泛的关注。半导体光放大器（SOA）因为具备体积小、工作波长范围宽、响应时间短及良好的非线性特性等优点,成为研制高速全光逻辑器件的首选。采用分段模型分析了SOA的稳态增益饱和特性,通过数值求解载流子速率方程和光传输方程对其特性进行了仿真实现。结果表明,SOA在入射光功率不同时会表现出明显的非线性;在一定范围内增加光功率,SOA增益持续增加,继续增加入射光功率,SOA逐渐进入饱和吸收状态,增益反而降低。     

超宽带可调谐SOA四波混频波长变换器的实验研究

基于半导体光放大器(SOA)光纤环形激光器中的双泵浦四波混频效应,构成超宽带并且完全透明的波长变换器,成功实现1550nm窗口2.5Gb/s信号的可调谐波长变换,变换效率在50nm范围内保持基本平坦,同时测出了SOA增益和自发辐射(ASE)噪音功率的关系.实验结果表明,在一定限制条件下,提高泵浦功率可以提高变换信号的信噪比.     

多量子阱超辐射发光二极管(SLD)热分布计算

对由8个量子阱所组成的条形超辐射发光二极管(Super luminescent diode,SLD)进行了热分析,计算了不同器件结构下的热阻和温度分布。计算结果表明,热阻变化受芯片宽度和长度的影响较大,可以达到两个数量级;当注入功率达到1W时,有源区的温度将接近50K。该分析对有效地设计芯片的结构,减少温度升高对SLD稳定性的影响具有指导意义。     

Interferometric method of suppressing the pattern effect in a semiconductor optical amplifier

A new idea of using change in index of refraction to suppress gain variation in a saturated semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) is presented. This kind of gain compensation has the advantage of high speed because it involves two phenomena that always accompany each other. This compensation can be achieved with a nonsymmetrical Mach-Zehnder interferometer structure. Calculated results show that with this structure the input and output power of the SOA can be extended to nearly 10 dB from the former small-signal limit when less than 1-dB gain variation is permitted. Numerical simulations with an advanced dynamic model of the SOA agree with the calculated results.     

增益半导体光放大器的特性

为满足半导体光放大器（SOA）在光纤到户FTTH系统接入网中的广泛应用,提出了基于光纤光栅外腔反馈型GC-SOA结构的全光增益机制,窄线宽激光光源经可变衰减器、隔离器和光纤光栅注入到SOA中,SOA的输出光经隔离器和光纤光栅送至光谱分析仪,通过光纤光栅反馈输入SOA形成钳制激光。对GC-SOA的阈值特性、增益特性及开关特性进行分析,结果表明:当注入电流小于GC-SOA的阈值电流时,增益随注入电流的增加而增加;当注入电流大于GC-SOA的阈值电流后,其增益不再随注入电流的变化而变化,实现了SOA的增益稳定,使SOA的饱和输出功率得到了提高。     

Power budget improvement for long-haul WDM transmission with optimum placement of SOAs

Sufficient power margin is investigated for ten-channels WDM transmission over 68,908 km by using cascaded in-line semiconductor optical amplifier for the differential phase-shift keying (DPSK) modulation format for the first time. For this, we used the structural optimization and placement scheme of semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) for long-haul WDM transmission. The SOA model for in-line amplifier has low crosstalk, ASE noise power and low noise figure with sufficient gain. The impact of noise figure, amplification factor, ASE noise power, optical gain and crosstalk with signal input power for the SOA model has been illustrated, which shows that 400 mA is the optimum bias current.

We observed that the optimized optical filter bandwidth for the 100 GHz channel spacing is 0.4 nm. We observe that as we decrease the channel spacing, the quality of signal is degraded. We show that the optimum span scheme-1 is used up to a transmission distance of 68,908 km with good quality for power margin more than 24 dB. This placement scheme of SOAs shows good power budget for long transmission distance. We show the optical spectrum and clear eye diagram at the transmission distance of 68,908 km for optimum span schemes. Finally, we investigate the maximum transmission distance with decrease in channel spacing, i.e., 20 and 50 GHz.