Optical travelling wave amplifiers with multi-section semiconductor-laser structures

Optical travelling wave amplifiers based on multi-section semiconductor laser structures are better adjustable to various applications than conventional single-section devices. The authors present experiments with a two-section TWA (TS-TWA), consisting of two gain sections separated by an absorber section. The experiments deal with the saturation behaviour of the device and with four-wave mixing (FWM) effects. The results show that crosstalk can be significantly reduced by use of MS-TWAS.