High-speed optical signal processing using semiconductor optical amplifiers

The authors report on all-optical switching devices based on semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA) in applications for optical time division multiplexing (OTDM) transmission technology. The report includes a discussion on the basic properties of an SOA, on the nonlinear processes of cross-phase modulation and four-wave mixing in the SOA used for all-optical switching, and on the application of the SOA as demultiplexer, add-drop multiplexer, clock recovery and wavelength converter. The devices considered here operate at data rates in excess of \Gb80, where electrical signal processing is not available today.