All-optical signal processing functions using semiconductor ring lasers

The authors have experimentally verified the potential of bistable semiconductor ring laser (SRL) as a universal all-optical binary logic element for the realisation of all-optical regeneration (2R), retiming (3R), reconfigurable all-optical binary logic, all-optical flip-flops, and all-optical random access memory. It has been experimentally shown that it is possible to switch SRLs within a few tens of picoseconds, thus enable operations up to and beyond 10 Gb/s. It was also demonstrated that high speed (thus wide spectrum) signals can trigger SRL bistable with little wavelength selectivity. The authors have also demonstrated a large number of other phenomena and functions based on various nonlinear optical interactions in the SRL, most notably four wave mixing (FWM). Furthermore, the potential of SRL-based PIC forming very useful integrated optical communications sources has been studied.