The gain decompression effect and its applications to very fast wavelength conversions

Author

Chen, J.H. ; Choa, F.S. ; Cho, P.S. ; Wey, J.S. ; Goldhar, J. ; Butler, D.L. ; Burdge, G.L.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci. & Electr. Eng., Maryland Univ., Baltimore, MD, USA

Volume

9

Issue

6

fYear

1997

fDate

6/1/1997 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

755

Lastpage

757

Abstract

The gain recovery in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) follows a two-step process: (1) an ultrafast gain recovery process through the nonlinear gain decompression effect and (2) a slower carrier recovery process that is dominated by carrier effects like Auger recombination or carrier diffusion. We discuss and numerically demonstrate how to control this decompression gain and apply it to very fast wavelength conversions.

Keywords

Auger effect; electron-hole recombination; laser theory; optical frequency conversion; optical pumping; optical transmitters; semiconductor device models; semiconductor lasers; wavelength division multiplexing; Auger recombination; InGaAsP; WDM; carrier diffusion; carrier effects; decompression gain; gain decompression effect; gain recovery; nonlinear gain decompression effect; optical transmitters; semiconductor optical amplifier; slower carrier recovery process; two-step process; ultrafast gain recovery process; very fast wavelength conversions; Charge carrier density; High speed optical techniques; Nonlinear optics; Optical pumping; Optical signal processing; Optical wavelength conversion; Radiative recombination; Semiconductor optical amplifiers; Stimulated emission; Ultrafast optics;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/68.584980

Filename

584980