All-optical Mach-Zehnder interferometer wavelength converters and switches with integrated data- and control-signal separation scheme

Author

Leuthold, Juerg ; Besse, Pierre-Andre ; Gamper, Emil ; Dulk, M. ; Fischer, Stefan ; Guekos, Georg ; Melchior, Hans

Author_Institution

Inst. for Quantum Electron., Swiss Federal Inst. of Technol., Zurich, Switzerland

Volume

17

Issue

6

fYear

1999

fDate

6/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1056

Lastpage

1066

Abstract

All-optical Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) wavelength converters and switches with monolithically integrated data- and control-signal separation schemes are reported. Two schemes to separate the data from the strong control signals are discussed. A first dual-order mode configuration uses modes of different symmetry for the data and control signals. A second configuration uses additional MZIs to separate the two signals. The control-signal separation permits to operate the devices with copropagating data and control signal without distortion of the control signal in the data-signal output. Copropagative operation allows for shorter switching windows compared to the counterpropagative operation. Further, this concept enables cascading of several devices since the control signal is filtered out and does not disturb the signal processing in a next cascade of devices. The all-optical switches are characterized under static and dynamic 10 GHz conditions

Keywords

Mach-Zehnder interferometers; optical communication equipment; optical frequency conversion; optical switches; telecommunication signalling; wavelength division multiplexing; 10 GHz; all-optical Mach-Zehnder interferometer wavelength converters; all-optical switches; control-signal separation; control-signal separation scheme; copropagating data; copropagative operation; dynamic GHz conditions; integrated data-signal separation scheme; monolithically integrated; Optical distortion; Optical filters; Optical interferometry; Optical refraction; Optical signal processing; Optical switches; Optical wavelength conversion; Semiconductor optical amplifiers; Ultrafast optics; Wavelength division multiplexing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Lightwave Technology, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0733-8724

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/50.769308

Filename

769308