Control scheme for optimizing the interferometer phase bias in a symmetric-Mach-Zehnder-type all-optical switch

Author

Ueno, Yoshiyasu ; Takahashi, Morio ; Nakamura, Shigeru ; Suzuki, Kouichi ; Shimizu, Takanori ; Furukawa, Akio ; Tamanuki, Takemasa ; Mori, Kazuo ; Ae, Satoshi ; Sasaki, Tatsuya ; Tajima, Kazuhito

Author_Institution

Networking Res. Labs., NEC Corp., Ibaraki, Japan

Volume

14

Issue

12

fYear

2002

Firstpage

1692

Lastpage

1694

Abstract

A control scheme for accurately optimizing (and also automatically stabilizing) the interferometer phase bias of symmetric-Mach-Zehnder (SMZ)-type ultrafast all-optical switches is proposed. In this control scheme, weak continuous-wave light is used as supervisory input light and its spectral power ratio at the switch output is used as a bipolar error signal. Our experimental results for 168-Gb/s 16:1 demultiplexing with a hybrid-integrated SMZ switch indicate the feasibility and the sensitivity of this control scheme.

Keywords

Mach-Zehnder interferometers; demultiplexing; high-speed optical techniques; integrated optics; optical control; optical feedback; optical switches; phase control; 168 Gbit/s; bipolar error signal; control scheme; demultiplexing; feedback circuit; hybrid-integrated SMZ switch; interferometer phase bias control; interferometer phase bias optimization; spectral power ratio; supervisory input light; symmetric-Mach-Zehnder-type all-optical switch; ultrafast all-optical demultiplexing; weak continuous-wave light; Automatic control; Demultiplexing; Laboratories; Lighting control; Optical interferometry; Optical pulse generation; Optical pulses; Optical switches; Power semiconductor switches; Pulse amplifiers;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2002.804643

Filename

1058254