Temporal Dynamics of the Alpha Factor in Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers

Author

Wang, Jin ; Maitra, Ayan ; Poulton, Chris G. ; Freude, Wolfgang ; Leuthold, Juerg

Author_Institution

Inst. of High-Frequency & Quantum Electron., Karlsruhe Univ.

Volume

25

Issue

3

fYear

2007

fDate

3/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

891

Lastpage

900

Abstract

The temporal evolution of the alpha-factor during pump-probe experiments in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) is not constant but varies strongly with time. It even takes on negative values for short periods of time. As a consequence, cross-phase modulation (XPM) effects usually lag behind cross-gain modulation effects by several picoseconds. This delay has important consequences for ultrafast operation of all-optical devices based on SOAs. It actually means that not every scheme will be suited for ultrafast operation. In order to properly model the XPM and phase variations within an SOA during a pump-probe experiment, a new parameterization for the alpha-factor is introduced. Inclusion of this model leads to an excellent agreement with the recent 160-Gb/s experiments for both phase and amplitude evolutions of the respective signals with time

Keywords

high-speed optical techniques; nonlinear optics; optical modulation; optical pumping; phase modulation; semiconductor optical amplifiers; 160 Gbit/s; SOA; cross-gain modulation effect; cross-phase modulation; pump-probe experiment; semiconductor optical amplifiers; Absorption; Nonlinear optics; Optical materials; Optical pumping; Optical refraction; Optical variables control; Optical wavelength conversion; Refractive index; Semiconductor optical amplifiers; Ultrafast optics; Frequency conversion; nonlinear optics; optical propagation in nonlinear media; phase modulation; semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs); ultrafast optics;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Lightwave Technology, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0733-8724

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JLT.2006.890439

Filename

4147764