Demonstration of bireffingence in a bulk semiconductor optical amplifier and its application to all-optical wavelength conversion

Birefringence effects in an InCaAsP/InP tensile-strained bulk semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) are demonstrated. Alloptical wavelength conversions based on birefringence induced polarization rotation in SOAs are investigated. It is shown that a bit error rate of can be achieved and an extinction of >9dB can be obtained at a bit rate of 2.488 Ggit/s with a 2³¹-l non-return-to-zero (NRZ) pseudorandom hit sequence (PRBS).