Title :
Gain-switched laser pulse propagation in a semiconductor optical amplifier
Author :
Talli, Giuseppe ; Vickers, A.J. ; Adams, M.J.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electron. Syst. Eng., Essex Univ., Colchester
Abstract :
The simplest method to produce pulses in the picosecond range for applications in telecommunications is to use a gain-switched laser. There has been considerable interest in short pulse propagation in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs), but to our knowledge little attention has been given to specific effects arising from the use of gain-switched pulses. In this paper we report the results of measurements of the propagation of such pulses in an SOA and compare them with results from a numerical model. The model is able to give good agreement with experiment for the characteristic distortion observed in the output pulse spectrum
Keywords :
carrier density; chirp modulation; distributed feedback lasers; optical pulse generation; semiconductor optical amplifiers; DFB laser; characteristic distortion; envelope function; excess carrier concentration; gain-switched laser pulse propagation; linear chirp model; modal gain parameter; multiple section rate equation model; numerical model; output pulse spectrum; polarisation-insensitive SOA; semiconductor optical amplifiers; short pulse propagation; slowly-varying approximation; wavelength shift; Distortion measurement; Numerical models; Optical distortion; Optical propagation; Optical pulses; Pulse amplifiers; Pulse measurements; Semiconductor lasers; Semiconductor optical amplifiers; Stimulated emission;
Conference_Titel :
Lasers and Electro-Optics Society, 2001. LEOS 2001. The 14th Annual Meeting of the IEEE
Conference_Location :
San Diego, CA
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-7105-4
DOI :
10.1109/LEOS.2001.968930
