A novel optical decision circuit based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer and gain-clamped semiconductor optical amplifiers

Summary form only given. Summary form only given. An optical decision circuit is very useful to periodically reshape signals in long-haul optical communication systems and as such prevent the accumulation of noise, crosstalk or distortion in these systems. However, to our knowledge an optical decision circuit that is bit rate and modulation format transparent, that operates on the signal itself instead of on a pump or external pulse sequence and with a truly digital (ie., nonperiodic) characteristic has not yet been reported. Here, we propose an implementation of such an optical decision circuit that is based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) and gain-clamped semiconductor optical amplifiers and thus can also be implemented easily as a photonic integrated circuit.