Active picosecond optical pulse compression in semiconductor optical amplifiers

Author

Tang, J.M. ; Shore, K.A.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electron. Eng., Univ. of Wales, Bangor, UK

Volume

35

Issue

1

fYear

1999

fDate

1/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

93

Lastpage

100

Abstract

A novel technique is proposed to compress and amplify a weak picosecond optical pulse by utilizing a copropagating intense pump pulse in semiconductor optical amplifiers. It is shown that, simply by adjusting the time delay between the two pulses, a controlled compression of the pulsewidth by up to a factor of ~4 with pulse energy amplification of up to ~16 dB can be achieved simultaneously. Furthermore, a compressed pulse shape with strongly damped wings is also observed. The shortest achievable pulsewidth is demonstrated to be dependent on the frequency detuning and pump pulse properties

Keywords

delays; optical pulse compression; optical pumping; semiconductor optical amplifiers; active picosecond optical pulse compression; compressed pulse shape; controlled pulsewidth compression; copropagating intense pump pulse; frequency detuning; pulse energy amplification; pump pulse properties; semiconductor optical amplifiers; strongly damped wings; time delay; weak picosecond optical pulse amplification; Delay effects; Frequency; Optical pulse compression; Optical pulse shaping; Optical pulses; Pulse amplifiers; Pulse compression methods; Semiconductor optical amplifiers; Shape; Space vector pulse width modulation;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/3.737625

Filename

737625