All-optical clock division with mode-locked figure-eight laser based on the slow carrier recovery rate in semiconductor optical amplifier

Author

Xu, Lei ; Yao, Minyu ; Wang, Bing C. ; Glesk, Ivan ; Prucnal, PAul R.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Princeton Univ., NJ, USA

Volume

14

Issue

3

fYear

2002

fDate

3/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

402

Lastpage

404

Abstract

With a mode-locked figure-eight laser, we demonstrate the clock division operation using a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) with a slow carrier recovery rate. We show stable clock division at 2.5 GHz and two output states at half the repetition rate of the 10 GHz input pulses. The forming pulses in the laser cavity will interact with each other at the onset of mode locking when the SOA in the laser has a relatively slow carrier recovery rate. A numerical model of the laser is built to simulate the generation of clock division.

Keywords

laser mode locking; nonlinear optics; optical pulse compression; semiconductor optical amplifiers; synchronisation; time division multiplexing; 10-GHz input pulses; 2.5 GHz; OTDM systems; SOA; TOAD; all-optical clock division; laser cavity forming pulses; mode-locked figure-eight laser; numerical model; output states; repetition rate; semiconductor optical amplifier; slow carrier recovery rate; stable clock division; terahertz optical asymmetric demultiplexer; time-division multiplexing; Clocks; Laser mode locking; Nonlinear optics; Optical attenuators; Optical filters; Optical modulation; Optical pulses; Semiconductor lasers; Semiconductor optical amplifiers; Stimulated emission;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/68.986827

Filename

986827