Title : 
Assessment of switching speed of optical bistability in semiconductor laser amplifiers
         
        
            Author : 
Westlake, H.J. ; Adams, M.J. ; O´Mahony, M.J.
         
        
            Author_Institution : 
British Telecom Research Laboratories, Ipswich, UK
         
        
        
        
        
        
        
            Abstract : 
Measured hysteresis characteristics are presented for a bistable Fabry-Perot laser amplifier operating at high switching rates. The results show that optical bistability ceases to be evident at a repetition frequency of around 250 MHz, corresponding to a data rate of 500 Mbit/s, which indicates switching times commensurate with the carrier recombination time.
         
        
            Keywords : 
amplifiers; hysteresis; optical bistability; semiconductor junction lasers; switching; 250 MHz repetition frequency; 500 Mbit/s; Fabry-Perot type; data rate; high switching rates; high-speed optical logic; hysteresis characteristics; maximum clock rate; optical bistability; semiconductor laser amplifiers; switching speed;
         
        
        
            Journal_Title : 
Electronics Letters
         
        
        
        
        
            DOI : 
10.1049/el:19860369