All-Optical T-Flip-Flop Using a Single SOA-MZI-Based Latching Element

Author

Bakopoulos, Paraskevas ; Vyrsokinos, Konstantinos ; Fitsios, Dimitrios ; Alexoudi, Theoni ; Apostolopoulos, Dimitrios ; Avramopoulos, Hercules ; Miliou, Amalia ; Pleros, Nikos

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Nat. Tech. Univ. of Athens, Athens, Greece

Volume

24

Issue

9

fYear

2012

fDate

5/1/2012 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

748

Lastpage

750

Abstract

The authors demonstrate a novel all-optical T-flip-flop (TFF) layout utilizing a single optical latching element that comprises an integrated semiconductor optical amplifier and Mach-Zehnder inteferometer and a feedback loop. Experimental proof-of-concept verification is presented at 8 Mb/s using off-the-shelf bulk components and a fiber-based feedback implementation. The proposed TFF architecture requires the minimum number of active components and just a single toggling signal as input. Its simple circuit design is amenable with photonic integration and holds the credentials for operation at multi-Gb/s speeds.

Keywords

Mach-Zehnder interferometers; flip-flops; integrated optics; integrated optoelectronics; optical feedback; optical logic; semiconductor optical amplifiers; MZI; Mach-Zehnder inteferometer; SOA; all optical T flip-flop; feedback loop; fiber-based feedback implementation; latching element; off-the-shelf bulk components; photonic integration; semiconductor optical amplifier; Feedback loop; Flip-flops; Optical feedback; Optical fibers; Optical signal processing; Optical switches; Integrated Mach–Zehnder inteferometer; optical flip-flop; optical memory; optical signal processing; semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2012.2187779

Filename

6151805