All optical latches using quantum-dot semiconductor optical amplifier

The design and performance of two optical latches, the Set-Reset (SR) latch and D-Flip-Flop has been studied. These latches are the building blocks of large optical processors. The latches are built using two optical logic operations NAND and NOT. Both NAND and NOT operations are realized by using Mach-Zhender interferometer (MZI) utilizing semiconductor optical amplifier with quantum dot active region (QD-SOA). Nonlinear dynamics including carrier heating and spectral hole-burning in the QD-SOA are taken into account together with the rate equations in order to realize the all-optical logic operations. Results show that this scheme can realize the functions of Set-Reset latch and D-Flip-Flop at high speeds (∼250 Gb/s). The dependence of the output quality (Q factor) on QD-SOA parameters is also discussed.