Title :
Novel design for noise controlled semiconductor optical amplifier
Author :
Philippe, Séverine ; Surre, Frederic ; Carney, Kevin ; Lennox, R. ; Bradley, A. Louise ; Landais, Pascal
Author_Institution :
Dublin City Univ., Dublin, Ireland
fDate :
June 28 2009-July 2 2009
Abstract :
The use of semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA) in optical communications networks has so far been limited due to their inherent large noise figure (NF) compared to Erbium Doped Fibre Amplifiers. Therefore improvement of the noise performance of SOAs is critical to their widespread adoption in future networks. We propose to reduce the NF of the SOA by introducing a lasing cavity lateral to the axis of amplification of the device. The carrier density within the cavity is clamped at the lasing threshold. It is thus possible to engineer the carrier density distribution along the active waveguide by controlling the cavity design. According to our simulations, some of the cavity designs lead to a reduction of the noise figure in this novel SOA.
Keywords :
optical communication equipment; semiconductor optical amplifiers; carrier density distribution; lasing cavity; noise control; optical communications networks; semiconductor optical amplifier; Charge carrier density; Communication system control; Noise figure; Noise measurement; Optical control; Optical design; Optical fiber communication; Optical noise; Semiconductor device noise; Semiconductor optical amplifiers; Semiconductor optical amplifier; noise; optical communications;
Conference_Titel :
Transparent Optical Networks, 2009. ICTON '09. 11th International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Azores
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-4825-8
Electronic_ISBN :
978-1-4244-4827-2
DOI :
10.1109/ICTON.2009.5185177