Wide bandwidth data transfer using multiwave mixing in semiconductor lasers and amplifiers

Semiconductor laser travelling wave amplifiers (TWAs) are attractive for terabit telecommunication systems for several reasons. They show strong, fast nonlinear optical behaviour. In addition they are compact, current controlled have high gain, and are waveguided thereby providing a highly efficient nonlinear optical element in situations where linear amplification is necessary, TWAs have now been superseded by erbium doped fibre amplifiers (EDFAs). However, the devices have great potential for applications such as fast switching, phase conjugation, dispersion compensation and frequency conversion. At Imperial College we are investigating the use of multiwave mixing in a TWA and control of the interaction via coherent current modulation. The aim is to use current modulation to enhance frequency conversion