10 GHz Boolean XOR with semiconductor optical amplifier fiber Sagnac gate

Summary form only given. The ability to perform high speed, bit serial switching operations has attracted the interest from a number of research groups. A low switching energy device operating on the principle of the Sagnac interferometer (TOAD/SLALOM) and using the nonlinear saturation of a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) has been central to these efforts. In this communication we describe the demonstration of Boolean XOR operation at 10 GHz using this device configured as a three input terminal all-optical gate. It is the first demonstration of two control beam switching with this device and is significant because it proves the ability of the gate to pass to the second interference fringe simply by introducing twice as much energy per pulse as is required for the first. Two control beam switching demonstration is important because it will allow the full complement of Boolean logic to be performed on ultra high speed optical signals. In particular Boolean XOR is central in the design of decision and comparator circuits that are required for all-optical logic.